Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to Today's Q1 2023 Conference of Klöckner & Co SE. For your information, this conference is being recorded. At this time I would like to turn the call over to your host today, Mr. Felix Schmitz. Please go ahead, Sir.
Yes. Thanks. Welcome to our Q1 call. With me today are our CEO, Guido Kerkhoff, and our CFO, Oliver Falk. They will now guide you through the presentation. After the presentation, we are happy to answer your questions. With that, I'd like to hand over to you, Guido.
Thanks a lot. Welcome also from my side to our Q1 call. Let's directly jump into the highlights of this quarter. Again, a set of strong results. Shipments were slightly down year-over-year, but this has to be seen in context of the exceptionally strong demand we experienced back in Q1 2022. In fact, shipments were very considerably up quarter-on-quarter. Sales came in below the previous year figure due to the overall price decline. Gross profit went down year-on-year because of the less pronounced pricing dynamics compared to the unprecedented price movements in Q1 2022. The same applies for EBITDA before material special effects. However, despite the challenging market environment and supported by our proactive net working capital management, we achieved a strong result of EUR 69 million.
Due to our strong operating results and our proactive net working capital management, we generated a strong Operating Cash Flow of EUR 64 million. Net debt came down significantly year-over-year and was also reduced quarter-over-quarter. We continue to operate with lean inventories going forward and expect a strong Operating Cash Flow for 2023. Let's come to an update on our strategy. In Q1, we continued our strong track record of executing our strategy. Materializing the opportunities behind the sustainability transformation in our sector is at the core of our strategy. In the recent quarters, we've successfully demonstrated our leadership role in the sustainable steel industry by enabling our customers to build CO2- reduced value chains through and with us, and by thinking our services all the way to our customer's gate. Our German country organization recently took its first electric truck from Daimler into service.
The launch of the first e-truck in our logistics fleet in Germany marks a milestone of the mobility transformation of our truck fleet for us. Our CO2- reduced services now include the last mile of logistics with virtually emission-free deliveries to our customers. This service perfectly complements to our Nexigen products and services and is fully integrated into the PCF values that we deliver. Last but not least, the e-truck is not just supporting our customers to build CO2- reduced value chain, it also helps us to reduce our own CO2 emissions and will further accelerate our ambitious path to net zero. In addition, we continue to pursue our Digitalization and automation initiatives. Our proprietary AI solution, Klöckner Assistant, handled more than EUR 280 million sales volume in Q1 2023. A strong level. Let's dive into the financials of this quarter.
Thank you, Guido a s we stated in previous calls, we are committed to a strong through-the-cycle performance and demonstrated the new Klöckner normal of higher highs and higher lows in the recent months of full year 2022, and now also in quarter one, 2023. Our initiative of actively driving down our inventory in the second half of the year 2022 clearly paid off and demonstrates our ability to perform in any market environment, be it in an upward or downward cycle. As a result of our proactively enforced inventory reduction, we mitigated large parts of negative windfall risks and have reset our stock price in the recent months. All this was achieved in an environment of rising prices. The result is visible in our P&L and our cash flow statement for quarter one, 2023.
Let's take a look into shipments, sales, gross profit, and gross profit margin for the first quarter. Shipments were only 3.6% below the previous year's level, despite the extraordinary high demand in Q1 2022, and were seasonally up by 15.9% quarter-on-quarter. Sales were down at EUR 2.1 billion, coming from EUR 2.4 billion in Q1 2022 due to the overall lower price level. Gross profit came in at EUR 357 million after gross profit of EUR 482 million in Q1 2022, but was considerably up by EUR 88 million quarter-on-quarter. Gross profit margin went down from 19.8% year-on-year, but up from 13.5% quarter-on-quarter to 17.2%.
We will now focus on the EBITDA of the group as this quarter was again strong. EBITDA before material special effects was at EUR 69 million. Reported EBITDA came in at EUR 48 million. The negative price effect of EUR 130 million year-on-year resulted from the overall lower price level in all segments. We also saw a negative volume effect of EUR 17 million year-on-year due to the base effect against the background of the very high demand in quarter one, 2022. OPEX was up, driven by higher expenses for shipments, operating supplies, repairs and maintenance and travel expenses, partly offset by lower rents and leases. Thus, the increase in OPEX was mainly driven by overall increased prices. Lastly, we had material special effects of EUR 21 million, mainly from the implementation of the hub structure in order to support further growth in France.
We are now coming to the cash flow and net debt. We had a net working capital release of EUR 34 million, sustainably driven by our smart net working capital management initiatives. Cash flow from operating activities came in at EUR 64 million in Q1 2023, taking into consideration interest and tax payments of a total EUR 17 million. Gross CapEx of EUR 16 million was partly offset by the sale of a non-core business in Germany of EUR 7 million. Accordingly, Free Cash Flow was at a strong EUR 56 million. As a consequence, our net financial debt was further reduced from EUR 584 million at the end of 2022 to now EUR 539 million. I hand back now to Guido.
We now come to the business outlook. Generally, the economy in our regions remains resilient. While it has to be outlined that the U.S. is performing very strongly in outperforming European markets so far. Let's directly dive into the outlook for our sectors, starting with Europe. Construction w e see of course, somewhat decreasing demand as expected due to the interest rate increases, especially in residential. Infrastructure projects are expected to partly compensate with a special focus on green materials. Machinery and mechanical engineering, no major changes since our last call. We still sense reasonably filled order books with no negative trend in sight. The risk of production disruptions, mainly due to energy scarcity, is still present even though the situation improved. Automotive, General consumption remains stable, with the industry association expecting +5% new vehicle registrations in 2023 versus 2022.
The risk of supply chain constraints is still present in the form of delivery issues for major mills, semiconductors and other EV specific components such as rare earth. We are following such development very closely. Energy also no significant changes since the last call. Positive market trends with greener energy generation continues, which represents a window of opportunity to accelerate green steel offering. Shipbuilding. No significant change since our last call. Sector is still under heavy pressure. I will now switch to the North American market. Construction, Residential construction now seems to be stabilizing as markets adjust to higher interest rates and falling home prices.
However, I would like to point out that due to our footprint in infrastructure and non-residential, as well as our strong presence in the east and particularly southeast of the U.S., where markets have been more resilient, pressure in residential construction is not touching us in a meaningful manner. Hence, we see ourselves well positioned to benefit from the ongoing investment in the U.S. infrastructure. Machinery and mechanical engineering. The sector is facing headwinds from a moderately slowing economy and therefore declining business investment. However, it is partly offset by infrastructure investment with upside potential due to large order backlogs. Energy, d emand from oil and gas is expected to see a continued or base low recovery on structurally higher oil prices. Furthermore, demand for renewable energy continues to grow strongly. Automotive.
Order production improved strongly in Q1 2023 year-over-year, supported by still decent consumer demand, improving fleet sales and dealer inventories despite weaker economic conditions. Shipbuilding sector should deliver modest growth in 2023. Let's move to the next slide. Let's now come to the outlook for the second quarter of this year and full year 2023. As Oliver pointed out, we delivered a strong operating performance in the first quarter, despite a challenging but further improved environment compared to H2 2022. Nevertheless, the macroeconomic conditions will remain challenging. However, we at Klöckner have proven our ability to perform in such context and to deliver strong results. Therefore, we expect another strong EBITDA before material special effect of between EUR 60 million-EUR 110 million in the second quarter. Furthermore, we anticipate a positive cash flow from operating activities.
This all goes back to our smart, proactive, and disciplined net working capital management. Our expectations for the full year 2023 are unchanged. We remain optimistic with shipments anticipated to considerably increase against the background of stronger demand. We're now happy to answer your questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, please press star one and one if you would like to ask a question. We will now go to the first question. One moment please. Your first question comes from the line of Rochus Brauneiser from Kepler. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Hi good afternoon, thanks for taking my questions. Maybe let's start about volumes. I think Q1 was pretty remarkable in terms of volume performance with 60% higher shipments quarter-on-quarter. Was there anything else than the usual seasonal factors, the end of the destocking and some catch-up from a weak second half of last year, which you see in your business on top of what you just commented on demand trends in general? When it comes to Americas, specifically, I think the +19% quarter-on-quarter was quite a strong number. Would you see further room for volume growth into the second quarter from that Q1 level you've recorded this morning? That's the first question.
Okay. Let me directly jump onto that one. On the volumes no, it's seasonal development and what I think nothing else to be said. America is strong with the 19%, I agree, and we see that continuing.
Is there any reason why you have not given any volume guidance for the second quarter? I think the trend seems to be fairly okay at the moment. Any particular reason why you just guide on EBITDA?
Yeah, yeah, I know about that one. Trend is okay, but as you can see on the range of the EBITDA, there are quite some uncertainties. That's why we said, look, it's more important to focus on the cash flow and the EBITDA and see where the volumes then will be and what orders we take.
Okay. Maybe also on the non-US segment, which was falling a bit behind the rest, with -60% year-over-year. Any particular dynamics which have been pointing to kind of relative weakness of that segment?
No. It's seasonally because of the winter, so it's largely Switzerland. The rebar business, which is a strong one, and that will pick up in the second quarter. No worries about that one.
Okay. On the cash flow, I think positive OCF is not necessarily what's happening in your first quarter. Not a big Working capital build. Are you positioning now for a tougher business in, into the second half? Or what shall we read from the working capital movements in the, in the first quarter?
Look, again it's a question of how the larger outlook in the future will be. That's why we said we don't wanna take any risk on our balance sheet now. That's why I said we on the inventory side, we stay conservative. We order what we need and try to keep it short to not have any risk on the goods, whatever might come. Yeah, just cautious. We're, you know, we're not negative on the development, but we're cautious.
Okay. I think I got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. That is star one and one to ask a question. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back to you.
Yeah. Thank you all. I think yeah, was a quarter where everything was basically said. Thank you very much. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to call Felix or us, and we'll answer it. Thanks a lot. Bye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.