Hello, and welcome to the thyssenkrupp Interim Report, First hHalf, 2023/2024. Throughout the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please note that this call is being recorded. Today, I'm pleased to present Andreas Trösch. Please begin your meeting.
Thank you very much, operator. Hello, everyone, this is Andreas Trösch from Investor Relations. Also, on behalf of my entire team, I wish you a very warm welcome to our conference call on the Q2 results. With me in the room are our CEO, Miguel López, and our CFO, Klaus Keysberg, and also my colleagues from the IR team. Before I hand over to the CEO and CFO for their presentations, some housekeeping. All the documents, as usual for this call, are available in the IR section on the website. The call will be recorded, and the replay will be available shortly after the call. After the presentations, there will be the usual Q&A session. Please only ask two, maximum three questions at a time so that everyone has a chance to ask the questions. And with that, I would like to hand over to our CEO, Miguel López.
Thank you very much, Andreas, and also a warm welcome from my side to our audience today, to today's Q2 conference call. Let me start with a recap of what we have accomplished in the past quarter. We all know about the challenges the volatile macro environment is presenting. However, we are actively managing the current situation, and again, we were able to clearly deliver on our three management priorities. Let's start with portfolio and our most recent, a d hoc release, an historic step for thyssenkrupp. We announced a 20% sale of Steel Europe to EP Corporate Group, a significant first step towards our planned 50/50 joint venture. I will come to this in more detail in a minute. Apart from Steel Europe, we also made tangible improvements with regard to the stand-alone solution for Marine Systems.
Here, we are in the due diligence phase that is very well progressing with both private equity and KfW Bank. In addition, we are also in elaboration about the spin-off solution. We will keep you, of course, informed as soon as there are relevant updates. Looking at Decarbon Technologies, after having created that promising segment at the beginning of the current fiscal year, the board is now complete and has already started to intensify their work. Also, I'm happy to add that we were able to win several female board members with long-lasting business experience from inside and outside thyssenkrupp for Decarbon Technologies, including a new female CFO for the DT, board, Carolin Nadilo. Moreover, we were able to close the transaction of our remaining 55% stake in TK Industries India, after the successful signing in Q1.
Our second priority is performance, and today we can present a satisfying second quarter that is in line with our expectations, so that we can again confirm our full year guidance for EBIT adjusted and free cash flow before M&A. We are also very well on track with our APEX program and the incremental improvements across all businesses that are contributing to our overall performance and resilience. However, throughout the company, we are all aware that our performance is not where it should be and that all segments will have to increase the efforts. One example is Steel Europe. Here, in mid of April, the segment announced first plans for a structural realignment to boost competitiveness and profitability, which they will specify in the near future.
Another example, Materials Services, just recently published plans for a fundamental structural transformation of the business model at TK Schulte to acknowledge the changed customer needs and proactively act to secure and expand the market position. Our third item on our priority list is green transformation, and I would like to give you some examples of what we are doing to support and benefit from it. At Decarbon Technologies, we are leveraging business opportunities as an enabler of green technologies and decarbonization for our customers. For instance, at Uhde, where we have signed a pre-FEED, which stands for Front-End Engineering and Design, contract to conceptually develop an integrated fertilizer complex for Genesis Fertilizers. In addition, Polysius officially started the construction of one of the world's first carbon neutral cement plants for our customer, Holcim.
And last but not least, I'm happy to announce that our efforts also pay off from an official side. Thyssenkrupp is on the CDP Climate A List for the eighth time in a row. Let me emphasize again, Thyssenkrupp wants to play a proactive role in the green transformation, and this will pay off for all our stakeholders. Besides this, there are also positive news from a governance perspective. We have just been nominated as MDAX number one in Union Investment's corporate governance ranking, a confirming sign that also our corporate governance efforts are positively recognized by the capital market. As indicated before, I would now like to come back to the recent deal announcement. This is really an historic milestone for Thyssenkrupp.... During the conference call on the day of the deal announcement, I explained the deal rationale and some background information.
Everything that can be said at this point in time is an ongoing M&A process, therefore, I will keep it short. As you all know, we are in ongoing talks with EPCG to achieve the envisaged 50/50 joint venture. By the end of April, we could announce the first step towards the joint venture. EPCG will buy an initial 20% stake in Steel Europe and aims for another 30%, which we are currently negotiating on. Right now, we expect the 20% deal to be closed within the current fiscal year. As usual, in such transactions, the deal is subject to several approvals, for instance, merger control approval. For us, the envisaged joint venture will combine the materials capabilities of Steel Europe with the energy expertise of EPCG for capturing the potential of the decarbonization of the steel industry.
Together, with the updated business plan, we will create a high-performing and profitable steel company. Let's now move on to further insights on APEX. I've already mentioned that APEX is well on track, with incremental improvements across all businesses. APEX is now more than six months in place, and I would like to take the chance for a quick recap, as well as a status update. On the left-hand side, you can see our APEX targets, and it goes without saying that these are confirmed. That means that APEX strives for total performance gains of up to EUR 2 billion until fiscal year 2024, 2025, and therefore is the key enabler to achieve our midterm targets. Throughout the company, everybody is working with full effort to reach these ambitious goals and make APEX a success.
As of today, meaning six months after the launch, we have already identified more than 4,600 individual measures, adding up to a value of approximately EUR 1.8 billion. Please note that we had approximately EUR 1.3 billion at the end of quarter one, a remarkable quarter-over-quarter step up. So you can see that we are making good progress and have achieved significant momentum through various initiatives and segment-specific deep dives. That positive momentum gives us confidence that, especially in the worsening macro environment, we will be able to reach our targets by identifying and leveraging additional measures. With that having said, I would like to hand over today for the last time to Klaus for the Q2 financial highlights.
I would also like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to you for your efforts and dedicated work for thyssenkrupp in the almost last 30 years. Working with you was a great pleasure, and I really appreciated it. Thank you very much, Klaus.
Thank you, Miguel, for the kind words, and also warm welcome from my side to this conference call, Q2. Please let me start our financial section with my conclusion first. We are on track to reach our full year guidance, and this is, of course, important. Despite an ongoing challenging macro environment, I am happy to, again, present you a very solid set of numbers that fully met our expectations for both Q2 and H1. And I would also like to confirm that APEX performance program, as Miguel mentioned before, is very well on track with incremental improvements that find their way into our P&L. Now, let us have a closer look at our financial highlights for Q2 and H1. In H1, sales came in at EUR 17.2 billion, with a 10% below last year's level.
The same is true for Q2, with a decline at 10%, resulting in sales of EUR 9.1 billion. As already visible in Q1, this development is mainly driven by the materials businesses. I will come back to this later on in more detail. However, looking at Q2, we also see ongoing growth at Decarbon Technologies and Marine Systems, which is both, of course, satisfying. With regard to earnings, EBIT adjusted in Q2 came in lower year-on-year at EUR 184 million, however, implying a quarter-on-quarter margin improvement of one percentage point, despite persistent macro headwinds. For H1, this resulted in an EBIT adjusted of EUR 268 million accordingly. Overall, the earnings development of all our businesses met our expectations.
Looking at cash flow in Q2, our free cash flow before M&A improved by EUR 20 million year-on-year and came in at -EUR 197 million. Please note that the negative H1 figure of -EUR 728 million will reverse during the fiscal year, as it is driven by our typical seasonality at the beginning of our fiscal year. As usual, let's move on to our balance sheet highlights now. Altogether, we continue to have a very solid balance sheet that provides resilience in times of macro uncertainties and also enables us to tackle strategic opportunities whenever possible and beneficial. Let's look at some details. Our net cash position stands at EUR 3.5 billion.
The year-to-date decline is a result of our negative free cash flow before M&A in H1, and I've already mentioned that this will turn positive in the quarters to come. Pension liabilities increased EUR 0.4 billion to EUR 5.8 billion from end of September, mainly on the back of the interest-driven surge in Q1. However, quarter-on-quarter, pension liabilities declined by EUR 0.1-0.2 billion, as we experienced some tailwind from slightly increasing interest rates again. Our equity ratio stands at a very comfortable 37.6% at the end of Q2. The year-to-date decline is mainly driven by the development in Q1, including the previously mentioned increase in pension liabilities. Please note that quarter-on-quarter, our equity ratio again increased by 1.4 percentage points.
Let us now look at the Q2 performance of the group in more detail. On the top line, we saw sales at EUR 9.1 billion, implying a decrease of 10% year-on-year. That is mainly driven by our materials businesses, mainly Materials Services and Steel Europe, on the back of lower prices, but also low volumes. On the contrary, we saw stronger sales at Decarbon Technologies and also Marine Systems, that had a compensating effect on the group sales development. Overall, it was another quarter with muted market dynamics across several industries, such as, for instance, automotive or construction. EBIT adjusted came in at a solid EUR 184 million for the quarter.
Please let me highlight the following: considering that the prior year contained a positive one-time effect at Automotive Technology in the range of a mid-2-digit million EUR figure from a settlement with a supplier, you can clearly see that our performance improvements are gaining momentum. In other words, on the back of ongoing efficiency measures, as well as increased resilience with our businesses, we are able to more than fully offset the top line headwinds. Free cash flow before M&A came in at 20 million EUR, higher year-on-year, at -197 million EUR, which is fully in line with our expectation. That also implies that you will see, as said before, a significant improvement in free cash flow before M&A in H2, in order to reach our target of an again, positive figure in the low 3-digit million EUR range.
Let's now look at Q2 EBIT adjusted in more detail by the segments. You can see here that Automotive Technology EBIT adjusted came in at EUR 49 million and thus considerably lower year-on-year, with a decline of EUR 60 million. Here, you need to consider that before mentioned, positive one-time effect. Hence, from that point of view, earnings came in rather stable year-on-year, with some tailwinds from lower material and transport costs, but also some headwinds, for instance, declining volumes and increased personnel expenses. Decarbon Technologies is back to positive territory with an EBIT adjusted of EUR 15 million coming from an extraordinary strong prior year. Overall, earnings are moving in the right direction. In Q2, however, weaker demand in our Chinese wind business at rothe erde, as well as business ramp-up costs for thyssenkrupp nucera, overshadowed our persistent performance and efficiency measures.
Material Services recorded an EBIT adjusted of EUR 69 million, a decrease of EUR 60 million year-on-year. On the one side, we saw lower prices and also lower volumes, especially in Europe. On the other side, we also had some tailwind from freight costs and further cost measures, as well as further network optimization. At Steel Europe, EBIT adjusted significantly increased by EUR 83 million from a very weak prior year to EUR 68 million. Our colleagues could benefit from cost improvements, especially with regard to energy and raw materials. That favorable development could more than offset softer spot market price levels, as well as lower shipments year-on-year. Taking these developments into account, EBITDA per ton came in at 36 EUR per ton. Marine Systems is up by EUR 11 million year-on-year to EUR 25 million.
The pleasant earnings uptick follows a strong sales development and order execution, with successful focus on performance improvements and initiatives to secure the pleasant margin level in new orders. Please also note that our order backlogs stood at EUR 12.3 billion at the end of Q2. Last but not least, our headquarters and others came in rather stable at -EUR 42 million. And having said that, let us now take a look ahead on full year outlook. Let us start with the most important KPIs, adjusted and free cash flow before M&A to make it short. Our guidance for these KPIs is confirmed and thus unchanged, and I'm very confident that we will deliver as promised. That means on the earnings side, we continue to project EBIT adjusted to increase to a figure in the high three-digit million EUR range number.
Thanks to the performance improvements across the group, for instance, at Automotive Technologies, Materials Services and Marine Systems, we are very confident to compensate the lowered guidance for Steel Europe, where we now expect EBIT adjusted to remain largely stable year-on-year. Free cash flow before M&A is further on expected to end up in positive territory. To be more precise, we expect free cash flow before M&A to be a figure in the low three-digit million EUR range. Please note that the market environment and the payment profile in our project business, especially at Marine Systems, both have an essential impact on that development. Let's move to the top line. Here, we now expect sales below the prior year level compared to the prior year level before. Again, this is mainly driven by our materials businesses and also slightly reduced sales expectations at Automotive Technologies.
But, and this is important, that also implies that we continue to have efficient countermeasures in place to tackle those macro and top line headwinds. And with that, we are at the end of the presentation. Thank you so far, but before coming to the Q&A session, let me say some words, as this is my last conference as the CFO of thyssenkrupp. Well, what shall I say? It has always really a fun ride with you guys for the last, I think, 5 or 4.5 years. I really enjoyed the open and fruitful discussions with you, not only here in this call, but also in person on various occasions, road shows over the world, in the U.S. and Europe. Thank you for being interested in thyssenkrupp and in our explanations on that, and thank you for challenging us.
Of course, I wish all of you all the best for the future, and of course, I wish also my successor, Jens Schulte, who will start the first of June, a very good and smooth start. With this, we are now ready for the questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you do wish to ask an audio question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so at any time by pressing star two to cancel. Once again, that was star one on your telephone keypad to register for your question. And one moment, please, while we get your questions registered. And our first question comes from the line of Alain Gabriel from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes, sir, thank you for taking my question. You have booked more than EUR 400 million of special items in the first half of 2024, which is much higher than your adjusted EBIT for the period. How do you expect this figure to evolve into year-end? And what proportion of that figure would be cash versus non-cash? That's my first question. Thank you.
Well, if you look at this, at this EUR 400 million you recorded on, you know that we had, let's say, impairment, which is the biggest part of this. And we also have some, let's say, maturation of fair value of CO2 forward contracts. And I think it is, let's say 25%-75%, something like this in the range, if you can consider to be. First of all, it is important if we look at impairment, asset impairments, which we saw in the first half year. It is, for us, important to really drive measures out of this. And we saw asset impairments with Steel Europe, interest-driven, but not only, and we also saw asset impairments with Materials Services, especially in Germany.
As you also noticed from the media, these are the areas where we, let's say, are really working on new business plans and improvement of the business. Therefore, let's say we do not expect, of course, on that kind of more impairments, but you never know. Coming to the effects we saw from the fair value of the CO2 forward contracts, it's simply a function of the CO2 prices, which we cannot predict.
It's fair to assume that the run rate will diminish significantly into the second half, right?
Yes. Yeah,
Thank you.
It's not a cash item, so this is clear.
Perfect. Thank you. And my second question is on your guidance. So you've brought down your revenue guidance for the year, but you've kept your profit guidance mostly unchanged. Can you help us connect the dots as to what is the real offset of your top line decline? Is it lower costs? Is it better earnings mix? Is it anything else? You mentioned automotive technology, but if you can give us a bit more color on that, that would be much appreciated. Thank you.
Well, I mean, as we said, also in the presentation here, it is of course lower costs because we are driving the APEX program with the cost reductions on that way. And therefore, you can see that we are, let's say, very comfortable that we are able to reach our EBIT projection here. I think we are able to increase some of this as we originally guided, but which you do not see this in the guidance. But the one which you see is that we said that the steel EBIT is not going to be increased to the mid three-digit number, but it will more or less stay on the same level. But we are able to compensate this in other areas here.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Zhang from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes. Hi, thanks for taking our questions. First one for me, just on APEX. Of the measures that you're finding, I mean, can you give any comments on... I guess you, you brought it up to EUR 1.8 billion from EUR 1.2 billion or EUR 1.3 billion, for savings. Can you just give some color on how much might be restructuring related and how much is sort of other efficiency savings? I guess the reason I ask is if I look at the employee counts for the group, and I know there's sort of been scope changes in the last few years, you know, we're back above 100,000 FTE. We're basically back to where we were in December 2021, despite the sort of restructuring push.
So just curious if, you know, that number should be coming down again in the next couple months, years. That's my first question. Thanks.
Maybe I can start on this. So, you know that we defined the restructuring program in 2020. It was about laying off or make, make, let's say more than 13,000 people redundant. With this, we, I think, are roughly 85%-90% done. What you refer to that, you saw an increase in headcount numbers. Again, this is clearly explainable because if you look at some businesses, whether it is the marine business in Brazil, whether it is, a business in the US and things like this, it is more a shift of reducing in high-cost countries to, let's say, build up headcounts in low-cost countries where also the business is growing. This is the story behind. And if you look at APEX, and maybe you can also add on this, too.
This is, of course, in that phase, not purely or let's strictly a restructuring case. This is about processes, this is about cost avoidance. This is about, let's say, purchasing and all these kinds of things which are at the moment in work. But of course, as we said, also, if you look at, for instance, Steel Europe and also Materials Services in Germany, there will be also some restructuring elements in this program coming up.
Yes, indeed. Thank you, Klaus. The vast majority of the EUR 1.8 billion is really top line and also procurement-driven, so reduction of procurement prices. This is the very large two chunks of the APEX program, EUR 1.8 billion so far. Having said this, we obviously will continue to add additional measures. And for sure, in Q3, we will see there another significant progress and we'll report about them to you in more detail.
Okay, that's clear. Thank you. And then, and then just a second question, sorry. With the impairments that you made in Materials Services, maybe any color on what, what forced that change? I guess, Materials Services is the one division which, you know, you've kind of consistently been hitting your targets already. Is that just similar to the view on Steel Europe, that, you know, structurally European steel is impaired in terms of shipments, or is that, is it very specific to the assets that, that were impaired? Thanks.
If you talk about asset impairments, you are talking about so-called asset impairment tests within cash generating units. We have a very, let's say, a small definition of what is a cash generating unit here. And here, it is affected, especially the German Materials Services business here. You know that an asset impairment is done, that you, let's say, look at the future earnings and compare this with the asset base. Here we see in this specific case, we saw weaker volumes and prices more on the year-end, which led to this impairment here.
Understood. That makes sense. Thank you. Best of luck in the future, Klaus. Cheers.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bastian Synagowitz from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah, thanks, and good morning, all. So my first question is also just coming back on the outlook, and mostly actually for the largest three business units. And maybe we can split this into materials and autos. So just on the material side, given the price pressure, which we've already seen pretty much in all of your core markets, and I guess then we obviously have another usually seasonally soft third quarter ahead of us, is there any risk where you may still see potential windfall losses just feeding through your PNL? And do you need a price improvement to really make your guidance?
I guess you seem to be very comfortable, so I trust you're probably not backing on a price tick up in the market, but just wanted to double-check on that. And then maybe similarly, also on autos, where likewise, you seem to be very comfortable and confident, despite the fact that usually Q3 is not a write-off, but clearly seasonally softer. So what's really driving exactly the strength, particularly into the fourth fiscal year quarter? These are my first questions.
I mean, if you look at material services or if you look at what you say, windfall gains, or let's say, increasing prices, this is not the assumption of our ongoing forecast here. So we are not really depending our forecast on increasing prices or windfall gains. Very clear. So this is, we have some ideas about volumes, and we have some ideas about our mix, both in Europe and also in material services. With this, we come to the numbers we are believing in. Maybe with automotive.
Well, I think we see in automotive different developments over the geographies as you have seen. The overall sentiment in the market is a slow growth compared to previous year. And we are, of course, doing a lot in terms of cost reduction and on efficiency improvements. And there is also an element where we have been quite working a lot on, which is having some additional pricing, and this of course backed on quantities that were not fully fulfilled and need now to be negotiated. So this is included.
But the dynamics for the material business are not coming from the market so much, but also from the cost side.
The price renegotiation you mentioned, Miguel, are they, are those already locked in, or are you still in active discussions, and that is still uncertain, or is this already pretty much locked in your contract framework now?
Well, that's as always, some things are already done and other things are ongoing. So it's, as you know, we are working every day and never everything is done and never everything is open. So it's a mix which is healthy.
... Okay, and then, just moving on to, APEX, seems like you made pretty good progress there with like 90% of the, I think, framework budget, largely covered with measures. Have you already casted the updated business plan in steel or parts of it into, into the numbers here? And if so, how much?
No, no, as we, Bastian, as we have been communicating, we are now waiting for the steel managing board to come up with the updated plan, with the business plan. And all the measures that will be described then in this business plan are not yet in the program. So this will be coming additionally into the program.
Understood. Okay, perfect. I've got a few more, but I'll jump back into the queue.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Moses Ola from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Hi all, thank you very much for taking my question. So just the first one for me is just on forward guidance into Q3. I know you don't give explicit quarterly guidance, but if you just give your expectations broadly on volumes, raw material costs, and on pricing, especially for the steel division, if possible, please.
If I got you right, you wanted to have a guidance for the next quarters for the price development. So, what we see is that on the one hand, the price development regarding sales prices, we do not see so much dynamics in this price development. From the raw material price, we already saw, let's say, decreasing prices, so therefore no major dynamics on these both items. In the meantime, we are looking at costs. So this is how we look at it.
Thank you. And I guess a follow-up to that, so just on the APEX program, I think you previously guided that Steel Europe would be 30% of the savings from APEX. Yet today, you've reduced Steel Europe adjusted EBIT guidance by, call it, around EUR 200 million. So could you please just help to square that? Is the underlying result X, the APEX gains, even worse than we can see, or just trying to really wrap my head around that.
You mean, if you look at the APEX program, you have to take into consideration that it is a two years program. So if you look at this fiscal year, it is what you said. But of course, our, let's say, our estimation, what will be the next year, of course, then includes the bigger part of Steel Europe.
Okay, understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Christian Obst from Baader Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes, good morning. Thank you very much. Three questions. One is, can you remind us of the current status of your portfolio measures within the automotive group? I take them one by one.
Well, you know, as Springs and Stabilizers is one of-
Yeah
... of the portfolio measures here. We are still in the process. We cannot confirm now the outcome yet. And, as soon as we are having significant progress, of course, we will let you know. The same, the same also for the Automation Engineering business, as such. So, you get an update next quarter, quarter three.
Okay. Do you think you've come to some kind of a solution within this business year? Just yet, yeah.
Well, let's talk about this in quarter three. We will remember your question, Christian, and-
Okay
... and come back to it, certainly.
Okay. Where do you see the main risk currently, the kind of framework to achieve your next year's margin targets, even at the low end?
Well, you know, the process in order to get into the detailed budget numbers is about to start. And, we will be ready by presenting this budget to the supervisory board and get it approved in the supervisory board meeting of September. So, exactly, we are working on this. As mentioned before, you have heard about the business plan in Steel Europe that is currently prepared. Sh-
Yeah.
For sure, this is a big, a bigger one, but also we are working on all the other plans. So this is something that we could really speak about then, as soon as we have all the budget numbers ready, approved, and confirmed. So I have to ask for your patience on this.
As I guess this will be the answer also for my third question. It's about the three, the CapEx framework until the end of the phase one transition, 2026, 2027.
... So what is your CapEx plan for these years in average? I guess you will give the same answer you gave before, right?
Yes, I have to say, we are looking for having exactly this kind of processes discussed and decided with the different business areas with our segments. And this is not the right time to make statements on this one. We will be ready to give some orientation on this as soon as we have the budget process completed.
Okay. Thank you very much. All the best for everything you have on plan, and Mr. Keysberg, also for you, all the best, and thank you for your time.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Oppong from Bank of America. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Hey, good morning, Miguel, Claus, and Andreas. Thank you very much for the presentation and for taking my questions. So, the first one is, can you talk a bit more about the level of restructuring costs that you are expecting for this year versus versus last year? And, second one is on the marine business. I was wondering if you can provide more updates on the progress. I understand you have reached the due diligence stage with the private equity and KfW. I was wondering if you can give more color on the spin-off solution as well.
I can start with the question on marine. I mean, of course, of course, it's an important progress that we have been able to report a couple of weeks back with the announcement that we are stepping into this very important step in the overall process, which is the due diligence that is now being conducted by Carlyle. So we will see the outcome within the established time frame. And of course, you would understand, as this is an M&A process that I keep the timeline confidential for the moment. At the same time, we have been working on as we also communicated on the spin-off track.
So we are here going for a dual track. And as soon as we are very clear about what both of the two options will be, then, of course, it will be communicated, and then the timelines will be very clear. For the time being, both things are progressing like we wish for. And also to be positively mentioned, also KfW and the government is having here a very good impact in terms of the progress in the whole thing. So, to cut it short, as soon as we have a clear decision, of course, we will communicate, and then the timelines will be clear.
Regarding your questions to restructuring costs, if you look at 2022, 2023, we had a restructuring cost of a very low three-digit number. If you consider the restructurings we have already in place or defined or even decided, then we will look at restructuring costs at this year as a two-digit midterm two-digit value. This is not including, of course, anything which is to come maybe from other business plans we just discussed.
Very good. Thank you very much.
Thank you. And once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, it is star one on your telephone keypad to register. Our next question is a follow-up question from the line of Bastian Synagowitz from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Yeah, thanks. And two more for me. Just maybe on the situation in the steel unit, have you had any initial sounding with the labor representatives for the voting on the EPCG stake, which is now coming up in the next board meeting? And is your expectation that this will be accepted? And maybe also on the new business plan, is your sense that the employee side has basically been accepting the new reality and is supportive for finding a new and competitive and sustainable setup instead of just defending the status quo and pretty much running behind the market?
Well, I think in terms of the business plan, I believe that we need to give now the managing board of Steel Europe the time as the important is so huge of this plan, the time to have a really detailed plan, and in the different aspects. And of course, we will then look together with the employee representatives to the plan and discuss how to proceed with it. It is now too early to make any comments because we first need to see the plan and then enter into the discussions. As long,
... or as it refers to the current process around the 20% stake, the processes around the presentation to the bodies that are to be involved has been done. And now, it's a decision of the supervisory board to take the decision for it in the next week. And that's what we can say about it.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. And then more maybe a technical question, maybe, one for Dr. Keysberg. I guess you do have this upcoming bond maturity. Do your plans to refinance the bond also depend on the decision on whether the government will be happy to absorb the guarantees in the marine business? Or is this an important decision factor for whether you are or not re-refinancing the bond? Or basically, do you in principle already see less need to keep as much liquidity and hence you are not really planning to go for refinancing of the bond as of now?
You mean the bond we paid back in February, or you mean generally so? But I, yeah.
I thought there was... If I'm not mistaken, I thought there was another one coming up, but,
There's one coming up again in the next year. Yeah, it is so.
Yeah.
Yes, of course. Now, you know, of course, we are in a comfortable situation that we have the freedom to decide on this, what, how we going to do. Of course, we do our, let's say, we do our discussions with the banks, and it is not decided yet, what we do with this. So, I only have to leave it open here, and, but we are already in discussions to do something, but we are not under pressure.
Okay, understood. Thanks for taking my questions. Dr. Keysberg, also from my side, it was a pleasure working with you. All the best, and stay well.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. As we do not have any more questions registered, I hand back to our speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you very much. Thanks for participating, and thanks for your questions. In case of any follow-up questions, the IR team is, of course, available. Thanks again. Have a great day, and talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
This now concludes our presentation. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.