Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to this year's analyst conference. We are delighted about the great interest. This is the first time we hold this event via Teams. We look forward to the new format. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome our Chairman of the Board, Dr. Burkhard Lohr, who is sitting on my right at a sufficient distance from me, in line with the COVID-19 distancing rules. On his right, is Thorsten Boeckers, CFO of K+S, who will then give a deeper insight into our Q4 figures. Before we start, a few technical notes from my side. This conference is webcast live. A replay of the webcast will be available on our website afterwards.
After the presentation of Dr. Lohr and Mr. Bueckers, you will, of course, have the opportunity to ask questions. Listeners of the webcast will have the opportunity to submit questions in writing, which will be read to the audience and answers at the end of the Teams Q&A. Please note that we will consider which questions have already been answered when treating the written questions. If you would like to ask questions via Teams, please use the hand signal and write your name and the name of your research house in the Teams chat function. We will then call you individually, and you can address your questions to us live. Please switch on your camera then. With that, we'll get started. I will hand over to our CEO, Dr. Burkhard Lohr.
Thank you, Dirk. Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome from me as well. We appreciate your great interest and hope to reach out to you in good health. Let me start by emphasizing one important point. Today's publication of our figures for the 2020 financial year according to schedule also implies that our auditor has issued an unqualified audit opinion on the 2020 financial statements. Normally, this is not worth mentioning.
Against the background of the ongoing audit by the German Financial Reporting Enforcement Panel, however, this is an important fact for us. After all, it confirms our conviction that the impairment loss on assets in the third quarter 2020 was properly recorded, both in terms of its amount and timing, as well as in compliance with all relevant regulations. Ladies and gentlemen, certainly 2020 was a year none of us will ever forget.
The coronavirus pandemic deeply impacted society, politics, and the economy. It was also an exceptional year for us. From one moment to the other, we had to implement many changes. Making a mine corona-safe is not easy at all. Therefore, we have reduced the number of miners when going underground. The shift system was more flexible, and we even produced our own disinfectant in our analytics and research center. Within record time, we developed solutions and made pragmatic decisions to keep our business running. Production at our plants has not only been maintained but even increased. Nevertheless, this affected the efficiency of our processes, and we lost around EUR 40 million in EBITDA for the year as a whole. Still, I would like to say at this point, our employees have done a great job.
As Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, I feel very proud of this, and of course, my colleagues on the board share this opinion. We mastered all tasks we could handle ourselves in 2020. We consistently implemented our package of measures and achieved important milestones for the promised reduction in debt. Most importantly, we signed an agreement for the sale of our Operating Unit Americas to Stone Canyon Industries.
With our new joint venture in the waste management business, REKS, we have taken a major step in the strategic realignment and implementation of future-oriented solutions in the environmental sector. Within record time, we completed the restructuring of our administration. We are saving now EUR 60 million per year or 30% of our previous SG&A costs. As promised, we realized more than EUR 150 million of synergies in procurement, logistics, production, sales, and marketing.
Last but not least, we further optimized production at our sites, increased efficiency and production volumes while reducing costs at the same time. Ladies and gentlemen, at the beginning of October, we signed the agreement for the sale of the North and South American salt business with Stone Canyon for a very attractive price of $3.2 billion. Many observers did not expect us to achieve this during the pandemic. When the transaction closes in the summer at the latest, we will generate net proceeds of around EUR 2.5 billion. This represents a giant step towards reducing our high level of debt. Shortly before Christmas, we introduced our new joint venture with a Remondis subsidiary, REMEX. We thereby want to create a real champion in the waste management business.
With REKS, we are establishing a powerful company to which K+S will contribute its operation and unique infrastructure of highly modern waste management facilities, combining it with REMEX intensive distribution network. REKS is highly significant for our strategic realignment and is a great example for intelligently leveraging our unique infrastructure. REKS provides our customers with wide range solutions for the safe recovery and disposal of waste. We therefore perform important waste management services for society. Moreover, it grants us the best possible access for the supply of the materials we will need for the future covering of the tailing piles at our German potash sites. As you can see, this cooperation is of great importance to us for many reasons. We expect the transaction to be completed in summer.
At the time of closing, we will generate a cash inflow of around €90 million as part of the package of measures to reduce debt. We will generate a one-off book gain of around €200 million. I briefly mentioned at the beginning, we have not only managed to maintain our production during the COVID pandemic, but even increased our production volumes compared to the previous year. This is very much due to our efforts to continuously optimize production at all sites. Production increases at our domestic sites, our latest potash plant, Bethune in Canada, also made very good progress. For the first time, almost 2 million tons of potash were produced. This was achieved at best product quality. We have fortunately reduced average cost across all plants to below €200 per ton.
Due to higher production volumes, we succeeded in meeting the stronger demand of our customers and increased sales volumes in the agriculture customer segment by a total of 1 million tons to more than 7 million tons. We have also achieved further important milestones in the environmental issues. At the end of last year, the state parliaments of Hesse and Thuringia approved the amendment of the state treaty of the cross-border mining of potash salts by an overwhelming majority.
This is an important step for our wastewater concept at the Werra plant. As you know, we intend to finally discontinue injection of the waters at the end of this year and beginning with the storage of saline solutions in the Springen mining field at the beginning of next year. Other important milestones last year were the permits granted for the tailing pile expansions at the Wintershall and Zielitz site.
This provides us with the necessary long-term planning security for our potash production. Our conference will be focusing on the financial figures now, and I would like to hand over to my colleague and CFO, Thorsten Boeckers, who will provide you with deeper insights into the 2020 financial year. Thorsten, please.
Thank you, Burkhard. Good afternoon, everybody. During our Q3 call, we already talked about our impairment loss. It was necessary due to adjusted long-term assumptions for potash prices and cost of capital. You saw that we published on February 17th that this impairment is being reviewed by the German Financial Reporting Enforcement Panel, called DPR. During the preparation of the 2020 financial statements, more specific assumptions for individual calculation components had a positive effect on the final amount.
Therefore, as of year-end 2020, the final impairment loss amounted to around EUR 1.9 billion. As Burkhard already mentioned, this was intensively reviewed by our auditor, and the accounts were finally approved by Deloitte. On slide 11, you will find our financial performance still including the discontinued operations of the Operating Unit Americas. In a year-on-year comparison, lower potash prices cost us almost EUR 30 million.
Our potash production showed a strong operating performance at all plants. We were able to sell roughly 2 million tons in Q4, compared with only 1.5 million a year ago. With EUR 188, our cost per ton achieved a decent level in the final quarter. The positive volume effect in agriculture, however, was offset by a weak de-icing salt business. In total, we saw a negative volume effect of EUR 13 million. The biggest driver in Q4 was an amalgamation of unfavorable one-offs. First of all, Q4 2019 was positively impacted by proceeds from the sale and lease back of our office building with about EUR 20 million.
In Q4 2020, we booked the one-off provision for our SG&A restructuring program, as we guided for, and the discontinued operations were faced with the project costs relating to the sale of the Operating Unit Americas. In total, EBITDA decreased EUR 60 million due to that. In the full- year, we achieved EUR 445 million, again, including the discontinued operations after EUR 640 million last year. Full- year free cash flow was at minus EUR 42 million.
A higher year-on-year CapEx and the weak de-icing salt business could partly be compensated by an active working capital management. Adjusted net profit was burdened by the impairment, as discussed, and amounted to minus EUR 1.8 billion. Due to this, we will not propose a dividend to the AGM for the financial year 2020. Let's look at slide 12 to have a closer look at the reconciliation after the sale.
The former Operating Unit Americas is now reported as discontinued operations. Slide 12 presents the reconciliation of revenues and EBITDA to continuing operations. On this basis, our revenues in 2020 were at EUR 2.4 billion and the EBITDA of the RemainCo was EUR 267 million. Looking at Q4 based on continuing operations on slide 13. Year-over-year, EBITDA was impacted by the price effect in the amount of EUR 30 million.
However, positive potash volumes partially offset this. Negative one-offs are a bit smaller because the transaction cost for the sale of the OU belong to the discontinued operations. EBITDA achieved EUR 39 million after EUR 76 million in last year's Q4. The full- year EBITDA amounted to EUR 267 million and provides the basis for our 2021 forecast, which will be presented in a bit. Full- year adjusted free cash flow came in at minus EUR 110 million.
Here, the higher CapEx and the weak de-icing salt business could only partly be compensated by working capital. This was my part, Burkart.
Thank you, Thorsten. Ladies and gentlemen, let's move on to our outlook for the current year. The general conditions for our business improved at the beginning of the year. Crop prices, for example, have risen sharply. This has also improved and will continue to do so. The yield situation of farmers, which will lead to an increased demand for the required inputs. This is also reflected in the continuing strong demand for our potash fertilizers in all regions. Since the conclusion of the contracts in India and China at the beginning of this year, potash prices have recently risen again more sharply. We also see potential for further price increases in the course of the year due to the spring fertilizing season that is now beginning in our regions and the start of the season in Brazil.
We are therefore optimistic of achieving slightly higher average prices for our fertilizers in the current year. Sales of the agriculture customer segment should also continue to rise. The favorable winter conditions in Europe in January and February have already resulted in a strong de-icing salt business, so that we also expect significantly improved sales figures for the year as a whole.
Overall, we expect the increase in EBITDA from continuing operations to range between EUR 440 million and EUR 540 million in the current year. This includes the one-off book gain of around EUR 200 million generated at the closing of the REKS joint venture. Our adjusted free cash flow, including the cash in from the sale of the Operating Unit Americas, will be well over EUR 2 billion. Excluding this and the REKS cash in, our free cash flow for 2021 is still expected significantly negative.
Finally, I would like to announce that we are further developing our corporate strategy. We will present the key principles of that strategy at our AGM in May. Thank you very much for your attention, and now we are looking forward to answer your questions.
Thank you very much, Dr. Lohr. Ladies and gentlemen, you now have the opportunity to ask questions to our board members. If you would like to ask a question via Teams, please use the hand signal and write your name and the name of your research house in that chat function of Teams. We will then call you individually, and you can ask the question live. Please switch on your camera.
One more request, as usual, we would like to answer your questions one by one. If you have multiple questions, please ask one question at a time, and we will answer it at first. After that, you will have the opportunity to ask further questions. This brings us to our first question. Just one second. The first question came from Michael Schäfer, Commerzbank. You have to unmute your mic at the computer
Okay, can you hear me better? Sorry for this one. Two question from my side. To start with, is your outlook statement. Maybe you can help us understand how we should bridge from the adjusted for one-off EUR 250 million base into your midpoint EUR 290 million. If I recall this correctly, we are talking about EUR 30 million cost savings contribution from your headquarter savings. You announced your EUR 60 million already. Half of this one, which basically would leave nothing for ag recovery, nothing for European de-icing salt recovery. Just giving a better understanding of what you have baked into as underlying assumptions there. Thank you.
Yeah, Michael. We are early in the year. We certainly do positive pricing trends. On the other hand, we have headwinds from the weaker U.S. dollar, and we also have, compared to last year, when you look at the logistics situation right now, looking at containers stuck in L.A. Harbor and vessels, bulk freighters being not unloaded in Asia. We have strongly increasing freight rates, especially on the relations out of Vancouver. This leads to, I would say, compared to last year, alone, a EUR 40 million cost inflation just for freight. Energy was also relatively low last year, and we see prices coming back, and I think also here one can say that about EUR 30 million headwind holds growth on other sides, like the slight increase in potash prices back.
Okay. Basically, what you're saying is that the turnaround from de-icing doesn't play a major role and your ASP, you are generating the uptick there, is not basically exceeding the increase in logistics costs. Is this basically what you're saying?
Yeah, I would like to come back to something that Thorsten has already said. We are early in the year. This is only the mid of March. We are seeing very positive trends on the potash market, but that has been accelerating or I think this sharp increase has only been for a couple of weeks. I think we needed a little bit more time to finally evaluate the situation and, on the other hand, if you talk about de-icing business, please don't forget that we are now only talking about Europe, which has not such a big lever as in the past with the huge volumes from Americas.
That is more or less the reason for our current outlook.
My second question goes to the adjusted free cash flow outlook, not about 2021, but rather at your press conference, you were quoted basically that you're looking into a positive free cash flow from 2023 onwards, even at depressed potash prices. I wonder whether you can shed some more light on the bridge, i.e., into 2022, and what you would call depressed potash prices in relation to where we are right now.
Thanks for that question. First of all, I said latest in 2023. That gives us the opportunity to point out that the biggest impact on our free cash flow this year still is CapEx. We have three heap extensions at the same time, Zielitz, Hattorf, Wintershall, with more than EUR 100 million each. That is a negative historic situation. We also know when this is done, for example, Zielitz, we don't have to touch it anymore until the '50s of this century.
That is one reason for 2021 being still under pressure. Secondly, we are still carrying the high interest rates. We will only be able to pay back debt and reduce our interest burden after we have received the cash. After closing, we have to pay the redundancy costs that have been provisioned last year. The negative cash flow will be 2021.
I'm not seeing you anymore. I hope you can hear me, Mr. Schaefer.
Yeah, I can hear you, that's for sure. Yeah.
Very good. When we talk about the potash prices, we all know it has been very volatile in the past. We want to prepare the company for being able to be free cash flow positive even on the lower end. If we look into the two cycles we have behind us, the range was, I'm not talking about a negative situation, which only lasted a couple of days or weeks, but one can say that the range is midterm. Long-term, we are more optimistic. Midterm, between EUR 250 and EUR 350 for MOP Gran in Brazil. This is the range where we want to prepare the company for it to be able to be free cash flow positive at the lower end.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you very much.
Next question from Andreas Heine.
Can you hear and see me? Yeah, that's fine. The first question is actually on the situation of Belaruskali, Yara, and how that might impact the European environment. After Yara has announced that they are not really happy how employees are treated in the Belaruskali, they might switch from that supplier to another one. Are you in discussions with them about this? How do you think this situation with Belaruskali might change the European competitive environment? It was Belaruskali, having done the contracts with India and China first, that probably is also a sign that they are keen to find a channel for selling their products. How see you this situation?
Good question, but difficult to answer from me. I will try to do the best, because we are, of course, not informed about all discussions between Belaruskali and Yara. It looks from a distance to me that they have more or less settled the situation, and that we are not expecting huge additional volumes delivering to Yara. That is not necessary, because the market is really bullish. Not only in terms of pricing, the volumes are going up significantly as well. We believe that Belarus will be bound in supplying into India with high volumes. For this price, nobody is willing to ship into India, and that could relax the situation in other areas. We read it like that they wanted to speed up the process to be able to deliver early and generate cash early.
We are not seeing that pressure from Belarus in the spot market.
Thanks. Maybe on this REKS joint venture, how does that impact the accounting and moving parts in 2021?
Yeah. REKS is an important part of our continuous operations going forward. The waste market is a huge market. It's a growing market with high growth rates, and we have already a very good infrastructure, and we have integrated that into our operations in a very good way. Remondis and REMEX are delivering huge sales power, which will help us to, first of all, improve the profitability of the waste management business by itself. Secondly, and that is a very important lever for us, to get all materials we need to cover the heaps. In the past, we thought we need to buy the materials, and that would have meant a CapEx program over many years, but nevertheless, of more than EUR 1 billion.
Now with this clever joint venture, we believe that we can even make money with taking residues and using them to cover the heaps. That's a big game changer for us.
It is nothing which affects the accounts in 2021. I not really understand what is the business you will consolidate and what will be at equity. Parts of your business underground probably is not part of this joint venture and others ask, how is that baked into guidance? It's not too big, but this complementary business in former days, if I remember right, was EUR 30 million, EUR 35 million a year. Where does that end up now with the joint venture and you having a 50% stake?
The target organization looks the following. All our waste management activities will end in this joint venture of REKS. That means that all these activities will be recognized at equity, because we are holding a 50% stake.
Okay, thanks.
Andreas, the biggest impact you would see in 2021 is the book gain, right? We mentioned that there's a EUR 200 million-
Yeah
approximately in the guidance.
Can you also elaborate how much of that is cash?
90 million.
About EUR 90 million.
90 million. Okay. Thanks. These are my questions.
Thank you. Thanks. The next question coming from Markus Mayer, please.
Yeah. Hello again. The first question is on the Forex impact, and also if you could update us on your hedging strategy and at what kind of currency levels you would get what kind of effect, for 2021. That would be my first question, please.
Yeah, Markus, we have, this is always our goal towards the year-end, that we have hedged 70%-80% of the next year's net dollar position. This is where we are. We have hedged about three-quarters of the net dollar position we expect for 2021. I would say, when you take 120 as a basis, a $0.10 movement could move in the one or the other direction, the EBITDA by about $15 million as year over.
Okay. My second question would be on further non-core assets. Are there further assets like the wastewater management which could be sold or joint ventured? That would be my third question.
There's nothing significant that you could expect to follow the sale of the OU Americas. Next task for us to positively impact our cash flows is a project I mentioned earlier, to prepare for being free cash flow positive on all sides, even on a potash price on the lower end. That is more further optimized operations, and that is not selling non-core activities.
Thank you. My last question would be on your expectations for the Chinese contract. Yeah, that would be the third one.
Yeah, I'm grateful for that question because the price is the same with 247 in India, in China, but the quality is different, because this, 247 is EUR 17 only in India, but almost EUR 30, EUR 27 for China. That was pretty close in line with our previous expectations after we've seen all the other markets running so well. Of course, there was a bit of disappointment for this price as well. We should not forget, this is almost EUR 30 more than the year before.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Next question from Lisa De Neve, please.
Hi. Can you hear me? I don't seem to be able to put on my video. Anyways, let me just ask my question. First and foremost, would you be able to express your EU ETS exposed carbon credit position for 2021? What is your position in terms of, are you shorting credits at the moment? If yes or if no, what will be the cost we need to take into the P&L for 2021? Any guidance on that would be great. Thank you so much.
Yeah. I can start and maybe for the impact on 2021, I hope that the CFO has numbers available or can Google something.
Can Google, yes.
We are more or less fine with what we have bought or where we have options on for our production into the year 2027, 2028. What the impact is on this year, Thorsten?
Yeah, on the P&L, Lisa, we expect that there will be a small double-digit amount versus last year coming on top.
Okay. Just to follow up on that, how much of your energy cost inflation, which is your EUR 30 million, is related to that carbon credit cost, please? Can you provide some detail on that, or is that just on top of the EUR 30 million energy price inflation?
That's on top of the EUR 30 million, because the EUR 30 million was only price related, and the volume we have to spend for the CO2 certificates is not included in the EUR 30 million.
Okay, thank you so much. On the potash contracts. You said you don't expect parties to agree to sell potash at EUR 247 a ton in India or China, or at least it to be mostly BPC. One question I have is how do you think as it relates to standard versus granular products? The strongest demand we're seeing right now is really Europe, U.S., and Brazil, which are granular markets, and ultimately one will need to find an outlet for their standard product. How do you think, or what will be the outlets for standard product if it won't be you or Canpotex or Uralkali shipping to India or China at the currently prevailing price? Can you provide some detail on that, on your thoughts around it?
Good question. I did not say that nobody will ship into China. I only said, I'm not seeing anybody besides Belarus from today's perspective. At least I know what we are doing. We are not shipping into India. China, I already told you earlier that the price has another quality than the Indian price. That is not the first time that we are seeing a gap between standard and granular. That will normalize for sure. Currently we have the price tags, and nobody has signed a contract in China. After Belarus, it remains to be seen, and we are very interested to see when and who and to what price the next one will have a contract. At the end of the day, nobody can swap 100% into granular and there will be volumes flowing into China for sure.
Okay, well, thank you so much guys for your answers. Thank you so much.
Next question from Alexander Jones, Bank of America.
Thank you. Good morning. If I can start on the agriculture cost guidance that you have for the year, if you could provide a EUR per ton figure, taking into account the freight, the energy, but also the Bethune ramping up and hopefully reducing cost a little bit there.
Sorry, cost per ton for 2021, right?
Yeah. Thank you.
We ended the year with a bit less than EUR 200. Sorry, euros per ton. With all this inflation going on and then expecting a slight price increase on an average level, I would say we will end up a bit above EUR 200 at the end of 2021. For the full year, of course.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you. Maybe my second question on the Industry+ segment. You've talked about volumes increasing and de-icing a little bit. Could you just talk about your overall assessment of that division into 2021 in terms of volumes and also profitability? Thank you.
What's the last?
Yeah, it's a much smaller unit in future. The biggest part was in North America. Still, we expect to end up with a volume of above two and a half million tons in 2021. That's the European share of the Communities part, so the ATS business.
Yeah. For the whole Industry+ segment, in terms of volumes and profitability this year?
We don't have that number available, Alex. Can we come back to you with that?
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much. That's all from me.
Okay, next question coming from Joel Jackson. Joel, please.
Hi, you see me?
Can hear you.
All right. Sorry for the close-up. I'm doing it on my phone this morning. Good early Canadian morning. I had a couple questions. I'll do them one by one. Going back to the question about potash and standard. Burkhard, you have a lot of tons at Bethune, obviously, and it seems like you're going to be committing a lot of those tons to China, one of the lower priced markets. What optionality do you have to granulate more potash from Bethune, either at Bethune or elsewhere, and take advantage of the higher granular prices in the United States?
Yeah, good question. We have already used all options that we have on site to increase our granular production compared to the standard production. We have thought about using third parties, that will more or less not be possible to the logistics required for that. Yeah, end of optimization for the time being.
Why, several years later, is Bethune still not putting tons into the United States? It seems like an obvious market. Are you having issues with granular quality to go into the U.S. specs? This seems like a no-brainer. Can you help us out?
Joel, we are doing that. We have shipped 100,000 tons into the U.S. in 2020, and we will increase that to 150,000 tons. Our customers are more than happy with the granular quality. Again, the limiting factor is logistics, but we will ramp up these volumes year- by year.
definitely, I think 150 is a good number, but you've got 2 million plus now from Bethune, and that's the high market. It would just seem like now is the time to really put the foot on the gas in the U.S. from that mine, right?
That's what we are doing.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Joel.
Next question from Christian Faitz. Christian, please.
Yes. Good morning. Good afternoon, everybody. Two questions, please. First one would be, I noticed that your mining provisions don't go down in your 2020 balance sheet, ex-Americas. I would have figured that Americas takes over at least some provisions. Can you please explain?
Yeah, Christian, about EUR 25 million, EUR 30 million relating to the OU Americas because we have the highest provision here in Europe. Given that we are using a long-term average in terms of applying interest rates, you do not see a significant movement there.
Okay, thanks. Second question, if I may. Can you please update us on the timing of the regulatory approval process for the sale of Americas? Where are we on that at this point in time?
Yeah. We are very happy with the process. Maybe you have seen, we have changed a single word, but an important word, to the guidance for the timing. Previously, we said summer. Now we are saying summer at latest. It could even be before June. Everything on track.
Okay, perfect. If I might sneak in a third question, very quick one. Any scheduled maintenance work for this year in any of your mines? Any bigger?
All normal business or normal maintenance business, nothing which is extraordinary.
Okay, great. Thank you, Burkhard.
All right.
I think we switch now to the chat from the webcast. Some written questions.
Yes. We have one question from Andrew Stott, he is asking, how is the outlook for Bethune this year in terms of production growth? Related to that, from Rikin, what will be the regional split?
Yeah. Thanks for the question. We are expecting another roughly 200,000 tons to add to what we have achieved this year. The split will not significantly change from what we are having now. Of course, I announced that we are not shipping into India. That means the impact on, of course, Bethune as well. Most probably, what we can produce in terms of granular, we do that and ship it into the U.S. and Brazil. Of course, a significant amount of standard will be shipped into China and some other Southeast Asian countries.
Thank you. We have three questions from Michael Boam from SONA Asset Management. First question is: what will be the CapEx in 2021 for continuing operations?
In 2020, we had a CapEx from continuing operations of EUR 428 million. We expect the CapEx for the 2021 be on that level approximately. Let's say about EUR 400 million-EUR 430 million.
Also from Michael Boam, what will be the absolute level of tax in the continuing business on a cash basis?
The company, we apply a tax rate of 30%, which makes it for me a bit difficult to elaborate on the absolute level. I would leave it there, 30% tax rate.
Third question, 2021 EBITDA guidance includes a EUR 200 million book gain. That was regarding the underlying operations that we have already done that. Sorry, that was the wrong one. What do you mean by significantly negative cash flow in 2021? That's the right one.
When you take the midpoint and deduct the EUR 200 million book gain, I would assume cash interest result of about EUR 120 million. I said earlier EUR 400 million CapEx-ish. With the increasing production, I would also expect a EUR 50 million negative on working capital, so higher working capital. What we shouldn't forget is that we pay out the severance we have provisioned for in 2020 for the SG&A restructuring, and this is an amount close to EUR 40 million. Summing all of this up, you will end up with a number of about minus EUR 350 million about.
Thank you. We have a question from Stephanie Winston from JP Morgan. Can you please refresh the market on your priorities for the debt repayment once the sale of the Americas business has been completed?
Yeah, I think we have a clearly communicated and clear strategy there. The proceeds will be used to pay down gross debt. This means the credit line, this means we are paying back the Schuldschein, which are maturing in May and in August. We're paying back the bond maturing in December. We will use the full proceeds for paying back gross debt.
Okay, got it.
Yeah, the KfW line, it's undrawn. That's why I didn't mention it, sorry. We will also, of course, then consider that we give back the KfW line, which is virtually undrawn now.
Thank you. One further question of Rikin Patel of Exane. Can management provide some insight on whether they think the Indian potash contracts will be renegotiated upwards?
Yeah. I've elaborated on that already. It's pure speculation. Again, I don't expect anybody else to ship into India. Will Belarus be the only source for India? Risky undertaking, and if they want to have a second source, they need to shift to lift the price.
We have a question from Christian Faitz from UniCredit. You mentioned lower interest costs once the Americas disposal proceeds are received. Are you planning to redeem that prematurely? I think that you were elaborating on. What cash interest costs are you planning for?
Yeah, I think I mentioned when I gave the thoughts about the free cash development in 2021, we expect for 2021, still cash interest payments in the amount of about EUR 120 million. Don't forget we are seeing maturing Schuldschein in the amount of EUR 330 million. Two third of this in May and the remainder in August, and then the big chunk only in December with the EUR 500 million bond. 2020 will be certainly a slight reduction versus last year, but the biggest savings when we pay down gross debt come in the outer years.
Okay. Last question from the webcast system, I will hand over to Dirk again. Will we see more restructuring costs in 2021 and 2022, especially with regards to your new group strategy, which you will announce at your AGM and your aim to get all plants free cash flow positive? That is from Roland Könen from Value Holdings.
I'm not seeing a significant restructuring costs. Some amounts, but small amounts. I want to use the opportunity with this question to remind of transaction costs still running into that year, but we have taken that into account already with our guidance for both REKS and OU Americas. That will be more significant than potential restructuring costs.
I've got here still hands on or hands off from Christian Faitz, Joel Jackson, Lisa, and Andreas Heine. I don't know if they have new questions because I cannot see that here in the system, or if we have got answered already your questions. One disappeared?
No, next. No here.
Yeah, I'm sorry. I just forgot. Yeah.
Okay.
Okay. The questions are answered. Yeah, we'll hand over to Dr. Burkhard Lohr for some closing words.
Thank you very much for this kind of artificial conference. Thorsten and I would have rather seen you live. I'm sure that will be possible next year again. We are looking very forward to that. Thank you for joining us, and all the best to you. Bye-bye.
Bye.