Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today's Q3 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. Fabian Joseph. Please go ahead, sir.
Thanks, and welcome to our Q3 call. With me today, our CEO, Guido Kerkhoff, our CFO, Oliver Falk, and our CEO Americas, John Ganem. They will guide you through the presentation, and afterwards, we are happy to take your questions. With that, I'd like to hand over to you, Guido.
Thanks, and welcome also from my side to our Q3 call. I would like to start right away with the highlights of this quarter, in which we once again demonstrated our ability to perform in a difficult market environment. Please note that this is the first quarter in which the results of our new Mexican entity, NMM, are partially included, as we successfully closed this transaction on August first. Shipments came in slightly above previous year's level as a result of the acquisition of NMM, and despite the ongoing challenging macro environment. Sales went down year-over-year as a result of the overall lower price level compared to last year's quarter. Prices, however, are showing signs of a sustained stabilization, with a trough now behind us.
Despite the lower average price level in this quarter, we achieved a slight increase in gross profit as a result of our consistent net working capital management. Once again, this quarter operating performance marks approval of our ability to perform in any underlying economic environment. Despite the ongoing challenging macroeconomic environment, along with steel prices declines in Q3, we achieved a solid operating result within our forecast guidance and EBITDA, before material special effects came in at EUR 41 million. Our solid operating performance, along with our consistent net working capital management, led to a significantly positive operating cash flow of EUR 36 million. In total, we generated an operating cash flow of EUR 131 million in the first nine months of 2023. As a result of the NMM acquisition, net debt increased year-over-year.
Further, the convertible bonds issued in 2016, with an outstanding amount of EUR 141 million, was fully repaid as scheduled. Despite the increase in net debt, we remain a rock-solid balance sheet, with equity of almost EUR 2 billion and an equity ratio of very solid 46%. You may have seen that net debt increased far less than the acquisition price of NMM, so we were able, throughout the last 12 months, to reduce organically our net debt. Let's now focus on our strategy and update for the quarter. As laid out in the previous calls, we have the clear goal to substantially increase our underlying profitability base going forward and to generate stable cash flows while reducing the volatility of our earnings. Thus, I want to first dive into the successful transactions we've executed to increase our HVAC exposure.
As we announced a few weeks ago, we closed our Mexico NMM acquisition on August 1st, an HVAC pure play. Since integrating NMM into Klöckner Metals Mexico, KMM, we can clearly see a strong momentum. We're dedicated to leverage our competitive advantage, and we already see strong results. Automotive and industrial customers have already requested an additional volume of 70,000 tons since closing, due to the significantly expanded product and service portfolio as a combined company. So now, overall, KMM provides a strong growth platform for the fast-growing Mexican market and will also help us to establish a more meaningful automotive and electrical steel business in North America. The great addition only further enhances the already strong development in the U.S., especially on HVAC.
Further, in early October, we acquired Sol Components, a market leader in end-to-end structural solar solutions for the commercial and utility solar sector in the United States. This acquisition expands our sustainable supply chain solutions and also further increases our exposure to HVAC. There is more to come, as we're committed to establish an unrivaled product offering in the North American market. Now, I want to highlight a program we recently initiated. As a reaction of the ongoing challenging macroeconomic environment and to increase the resilience of our European distribution businesses, we initiated a European efficiency program. By implementing precise efficiency measures in the segments Klöckner Metals EU and Klöckner Metals Non-EU, we will reduce our headcount in the European distribution business by around 300.
This represents a reduction of approximately 10%, and we plan to achieve 80% of the FTE reduction already by the end of this year. This efficiency program will significantly improve our underlying profitability base by increasing our operating income by around EUR 25 million annually, with the effects already being visible in 2024. Negative material special effects arising from the implementation of the European efficiency program will be largely offset by positive material special effects from asset disposals related to the program. This program will ensure that the resilience of our European business is significantly strengthened. Let's now focus on another HVAC initiative. We've invested in a state-of-the-art aluminum slitting line in Switzerland. The new machine will significantly increase our processing capacity, especially in regard to mechanical engineering customers, and establishes a leading service center in Switzerland.
Additionally, the market in neighboring countries can be served to space the way for further profitable growth. What I also want to point out is that our Swiss business, in general, continues its positive development, with order intake for rebar on a record level in Q3 2023. That's it on the strategy part. Oliver, please take over for the financials.
Yes, thank you. As Guido already stated, we achieved a solid operating performance with a positive cash flow generation despite the ongoing challenging market environment. Again, we mitigated large parts of negative price risks during the steel price corrections. Prices, however, appear to have bottomed and stabilized in October. Therefore, we are confident that we are now through the trough with a still very lean inventory situation in our warehouses. As a result of our consistent net working capital management, we continue to expect a strong and significantly positive cash flow for the full year 2023. Further, the European efficiency program will substantially increase the resilience of our European business activities and improve our operating results considerably going forward. Our efforts in digitalization and automation continue to complement these efficiency measures.
The number of digital quotes, meaning quotes handled automatically by the Klöckner system, have more than doubled year-on-year in the first nine months of 2023, and continue to benefit from the rollout of the email to text feature in the recent months. Further, also driven by the rollout of the email to text feature, the average number of manual changes per digital order further decreased by 14% in the first nine months of 2023. Let's take a look into shipments, sales, gross profit, and gross profit margin for the third quarter. Shipments were up by 3.7%, including Klöckner Metals Mexico. Excluding KMM, shipments were 3.1% below the previous year due to the challenging market environment, especially in Europe.
Sales decreased from EUR 2.4 billion in quarter three, 2022, to EUR 1.9 billion due to the overall lower average price level. Gross profit came in at EUR 314 million, after a gross profit of EUR 305 million in quarter three, 2022. Gross profit margin went up considerably from 12.9%-16.3% year-on-year. We will now focus on the EBITDA for the group. This quarter was, we once again delivered a solid EBITDA performance despite the challenging market environment and the negative volume effects, but supported by our Mexican business. EBITDA was at EUR 41 billion for quarter three, 2023. Excluding KMM, we saw a negative volume effect of EUR 10 million year-on-year, due to the challenging macroeconomic environment, especially in Europe, partly offset by our strong U.S. business.
The positive price effect of EUR 16 million year-on-year resulted from the favorable price dynamics compared to last year's quarter. OpEx was down significantly year-on-year, mainly driven by lower personal expenses and shipping costs, as well as lower consulting expenses. Lastly, we had negative FX effects of EUR 4 million, and our KMM business contributed EUR 7 million to the group EBITDA in just two months. We are now coming to cash flow and net debt development. We had a net working capital release of EUR 24 million, driven by our consistent net working capital management. Taking into consideration interest and tax payments of, in total, EUR 29 million, cash flow from operating activities came in at EUR 36 million in quarter three 2023.
Including net CapEx of EUR 340 million, of which 310 relates to the acquisition of KMM, free cash flow was at EUR -304 million. As a consequence, after negative FX effects, leasing, and other effects, our net financial debt increased quarter-on-quarter from EUR 596 million- EUR 923 million. I now hand over to John to have a closer look at our market in North America.
Thank you, Oliver. The economic situation in North America has certainly developed much better than previously expected, with a very robust U.S. GDP growth in the third quarter, and the much-discussed soft landing scenario looking more and more likely for the U.S. economy. From a steel demand perspective, we continue to experience a fairly stable development, but with significant variation between key market segments. We estimate for the full year, the overall market will be flat to up modestly. At the service center level, the Metals Service Center Institute reported year-over-year, third quarter U.S. industry shipments were down by over 3%, while Klöckner Metals, on a same-store basis, delivered greater than 4% growth, indicating meaningful market share gains have been achieved.
The market also continues to experience unprecedented price volatility, with prices on flat products dropping by over $600 a metric ton from May to October, but now have seemed to have found a bottom. Turning to the specific situation and market segments, looking at construction, overall construction activity is down, driven by weaker but still relatively resilient residential building activity, and to a lesser degree, by a modest decline in non-residential buildings. The lower year-over-year combined building activity is being partially offset by strong growth in non-building spending, specifically related to infrastructure. We do expect usual seasonal pressures in fourth quarter, followed by a solid recovery at some point in 2024 in residential and continued positive growth from infrastructure-related investments.
Turning to manufacturing machinery, overall manufacturing sector has been under pressure, with the ISM Manufacturing Index in negative territory for 11 straight months, but showing a more positive trend towards the end of Q3. Despite the negative sentiment, the actual situation on the ground has been somewhat different, as we continue to experience stable demand on a year-over-year basis, and current OEM forecasts do not indicate any major change to this trend other than usual Q4 seasonality. We see an even stronger situation developing in Mexico, coming from the positive effects of reshoring. Turning to transportation, North American auto production looks to be up between 6% and 8% in 2023, and we should see similar gains in 2024. Obviously, the recent tentative labor agreements between the UAW and the Detroit Three helps remove any uncertainty relative to the near-term outlook.
Our shipbuilding business has also been a strong contributor, with double-digit year-over-year growth and new defense-related contracts recently secured, taking us through 2030. Looking at appliances and HVAC, year-over-year growth has been somewhat negative, at least through the first half of 2023, as OEMs look to rebalance supply chain inventories. We subsequently experienced a decent recovery in Q3 shipments to this sector, with production now seemingly better aligned with underlying demand. We now expect generally stable shipments with usual seasonality, followed by some further modest improvements in 2024, and Mexico, again, is expected to experience even stronger growth trends due to the effects of reshoring and nearshoring.
And finally, in energy, the oil and gas tank sector has gone through a somewhat softer period in Q3 with declining rig counts, but the situation is now expected to improve again, as rig counts have recently started to expand in response to higher oil prices. The renewables sector continues to experience explosive growth, especially in solar, and this is one of the key segments that is driving the previously mentioned market share gains that KMC in North America has been achieving. And finally, the transformer market is and should remain extremely strong, with multi-year backlogs in many cases. Our entrance into the electrical steel market is well-timed from this perspective. So finally, in summary, overall current demand situation is expected to remain on stable footing, with only usual seasonal factors affecting Q4.
Prices, especially for flat roll, have found bottom and are clearly trending higher as we head into 2024. KMC in North America is well positioned within the right industry segments for strong growth in 2024, as we leverage the incredibly strong momentum that Guido mentioned earlier, that has been created by the National Material and Sol Components acquisitions. We will also continue to modernize and enhance our core service center business while expanding our portfolio of higher value-added products and services. We are extremely optimistic heading into next year, and are very confident that the Americas will continue to generate consistently positive financial performance through all market cycles, as we deliver strong growth and continue to develop complex, differentiated, and sustainable supply chain solutions that create more value for our customers. Thank you, and I'll turn it back over to Guido.
Yeah. Thanks, John. Let's now focus on the European end markets. Coming to the sectors, if we take a look at the construction industry, we of course see that interest rate hikes and central banks and higher mortgage rates continue to affect the overall demand, especially in residential. However, we expect infrastructure projects to partly compensate for the negative effects in residential construction. Manufacturing, machinery, and mechanical engineering, we still sense reasonably filled order books. However, the order intake continues to decline, and therefore, existing buffers for production are getting gradually decreasing. On the transportation sector, we will dive the outlook for the automotive sector before moving on to the shipbuilding. We see no major change since our last call in automotive. General consumption remains stable. Continued easing of supply chain disruptions allow existing order backlogs to be worked off.
We're still following the potential risk of resurging supply chain constraints closely, but so far, we don't see it, so order is still in line and above, clearly above, previous year. Now let's come and move to the shipbuilding sector. The commercial segment is still under heavy pressure. However, the German shipyards start to become gradually visible in the cruise ship sector, and we're also participating there and have some good order intakes. Now, household and commercial appliances segment with marginal impact on our European businesses. However, we still expect somewhat a stable development. And on the energy industry segment, where we also sense no major changes since our last call took place, the general growth trajectory remains intact, and we see the opportunity to accelerate green steel offerings, especially into this sector.
With that, I'd like to come to the financial outlook for the full year 2023. As John and I pointed out, some uncertainties persist for the remainder of the year, even though the trough's now clearly behind us as prices continue to stabilize. In total, we expect the macroeconomic environment to remain challenging, especially in Europe. We still forecast shipments to slightly increase in financial year and full year 2023, driven by KMM. Sales are expected to come in below the previous year's figure in 2023, due to an overall lower average price level. For the full year 2023, we now forecast EBITDA before material special effects of EUR 170 million-EUR 200 million. Moreover, we still expect operating cash flow to come in strong and significantly positive.
However, what I would like to point out, is that our general development towards further HVP exposure to substantially increase our underlying profitability base going forward remains intact, because this especially supported strong business in North America. We're therefore looking forward towards a substantially stronger year 2024. We're now happy to take your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press nine and star on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to cancel your question, press nine and star a second time. Please press now nine and star to state your questions. At the moment, there seem to be no questions. I would like to repeat once more, if you would like to ask a question, please press nine and star on your telephone keypad. There seem to be no questions from the audience.
Well, with that, we thank you all very much. If there are still remaining questions, feel free to contact Fabian Joseph or us directly, IR and Communications, and we're available. Thank you very much for the call.