Okay, good morning, everyone, and welcome to SSAB's Q4 2015 results presentation. My name is Andreas Koch, Head of Investor Relations, and the agenda for today is as follows. Martin Lindqvist, our CEO, will, of course, start the presentation, going through the market trends, the group numbers, as well as the development for the divisions. Next up is Håkan Folin, our CFO, who will go deeper into the cash flow statement, P&L, and what's our financial situation. Martin will then conclude the presentation with the outlook for Q1. Finally, we'll have the Q&A session. So I'd like to hand over to Martin.
Thank you, Andreas, and, good morning. You took it in the right order. You said CFO and then CEO, and that is, as many of you know, my background. I will start with this picture, not to give you a lecture in geography, but, China is very important for the global steel industry and impacting the global steel market a lot. What we have seen the last 10 years is China going from a net importer of steel to a net exporter of steel. China has built up a massive steel production capacity as well, and, the demand increase the last number of years has been huge in China. But now when it's plateauing out, China is having a lot of excess capacity of steel.
The way they solve it is like this, and these are figures for 2013, 2014, and then preliminary figures for 2015. They export it. They export it to North America, Latin America, Africa, Middle East, and to Europe, but to the largest extent, to Southeast Asia. And we experience that, among other places, on the North American plate market. We see that Korean plate producers are being pushed out of their home market in Korea, exporting to North America. We see other different trade patterns. So the trade patterns and the export and import patterns has clearly changed. And if you look at the figures, even though these are preliminary figures still, you can say that the volumes exported out of China has more or almost doubled since 2013, during the last two years.
Russia or CIS is also a large net exporter, but there, the volumes have been fairly stable. This, of course, puts pressure on prices. It puts pressure on global steel capacity utilization. How do we then, a fairly small global steel company with a production capacity or actually being number 47 or so among the steel producers in the world, size-wise? Well, we try to concentrate on the things that we can influence ourselves. Of course, being very active on the market, reducing lead times, increasing delivery performance, safeguard, and if possible, increase market shares in the Nordic region, the home market for flat carbon steel, in North America for plate, and globally for Q&T and other niche grades. But then also, of course, take actions to improve efficiency. We are running the synergy progress, process.
It's progressing faster and better than the initial plan, but to be honest, when you give a plan, you always, of course, create yourself some headroom. Now, we are 1.5 years into the synergy program, and we know more exactly what it will deliver mid this year, and I will come back to that. Synergies, as we see it, is due to the combination of Ruukki and SSAB. On top of that, we need to do additional efficiency measures, like all the other steel companies, to keep up our cost position. So if this is a relative change in cost position, this is to keep up with the pace in the steel industry. Of course, we focus a lot on actions to secure cash flow, and we'll come back to that as well.
Now we have this production system after the integration, which is much more flexible compared to what we had in the old Ruukki and the old SSAB. We can idle capacity if the market worsens in a much more cost-effective way than we could before. If we start with synergies, the run rate, end of 2015, end of December 2015, was SEK 1.1 billion, and we know that we will deliver SEK 1.8 billion in synergies mid-2016, mid this year. In the P&L, last year, we saw gross effects of SEK 625 million, and we expect to see additionally SEK 900 million of synergies coming through in the P&L this year, with a full year effect, 2017. We have taken, during 2015 and during Q4, all known costs for the synergy realizations.
There could be some minor costs still, but, but the majority of the cost to realize these synergies are taken. Our initial estimation was SEK 500 million, then we updated it to SEK 200 million, and the outcome is lower than SEK 200 million. We measure number of employees. Up until end of Q4, we had reduced the manning with 1,300 people in the combined company since we started, did the merger. We have already announced and agreed and then negotiated additional 650 people, and they are leaving now, during the first half of this year. Quite a number of them left in January, and this morning, we came out with a new announcement of 465 people. So at the end of this year.
We will be approximately 15,500 people, a reduction of 14% or 13.6 something, which is with, if you measure it, tons per man hour, quite an improvement in productivity. As said, we are not only doing the synergy programs. Synergies SEK 1.8 delivered mid this year. The PCI investment in Raahe that will reduce costs with SEK 200 million per year is done, up and running. The savings in Ruukki Construction that will give, on an annual basis, SEK 200 million, is under implementation the first half of this year, and then other savings that are ongoing. So at the end of this year, with full effect next year, we will have structurally reduced the cost with approximately SEK 2.5 billion.
Over to Q4 then, and I will give you a brief overview of the group and the divisions, and then Håkan will take you through the figures. We have talked about the synergies, and if I would use one sentence to describe Q4, I would say price pressure and weak apparent demand. That's why also we came out with a profit warning or the updated prognosis of Q4 in December. We said we would be somewhere between SEK -700 million and SEK -900 million. We ended up at SEK -802 million. It was lower prices in U.S., lower volumes in U.S., lower prices and volumes in Europe. We had, during the quarter, a strong cash flow. We had an operational cash flow of SEK 1.8 billion and a net cash flow of SEK 1.5 billion.
If you go through the divisions, Q4, lower shipments of non-branded Q&T in North America. Non-branded Q&T typically or mainly goes to steel service centers, and they were not buying. We took market shares in the most important product, our abrasion-resistant steel, Hardox. If you compare Q4 2014 to Q4 2015, one big deviation is, of course, that we took the maintenance outage last year in Q4, and we usually, or we used to take it in Q3, so that is, of course, disturbing the comparison a bit. We have, during the beginning of this year, introduced a new business unit called SSAB Service. I will come back to that. Europe, operating loss due to drop in prices and low volumes. Low volumes in Q4 were due to a wait-and-see mood among the customers.
They thought that the material I buy this week will probably, most probably, be cheaper next week, so better to wait and see. So low apparent demand. Automotive segment remained strong in Q4 and during the full year, and the focus has been, and will be, of course, to finalize all the actions to achieve the synergies. Americas, sharp price drops, lower volumes, partly offset by lower costs, and the declining volumes due to destocking among steel service centers. Heavy transport started to slow down a bit in Q4, while demand for wind towers and some other segments remained strong. We also here, we don't have any synergies here, but we have a strong focus on cost efficiency. We do twice a year, a benchmark study to check the cost position compared to other plate producers.
We have recently done that, and we keep our leading quality and cost position compared to other plate producers. Tibnor, slow, slow sales, profit impacted, low volumes, lower prices, and then negative inventory revaluation. We were taking market shares during 2015, and especially during the fourth quarter in the Nordic market. The focus going forward is, of course, to deliver on the synergies, but be more active on the market and expand the full metal service offering we have in Norway today and Sweden into Finland.
Ruukki Construction, well, Russia is still a depressed market. Building systems, sales were down. Sweden remained strong. Finland, I would say, call it stagnant on a stable, low level. The profitability improvement we see here, Q4 over Q4, is mainly due to the ongoing restructuring program. Lower costs, lower sales, but lower costs and better, better profit. Of course, here, the focus is to now, during the first half of this year, conclude the restructuring program. Håkan, some more details about financials.
Thank you, Martin, and thank you, all of you for coming here today. I will go through some of the key figures. I will also show you the bridges, quarter-to-quarter and year-over-year. Some more details on the cash flow, and then also the balance sheet, of course. Then finally, some guidance for 2016 on cash flow and on cost. Starting then with some key figures. We had an operating profit in the quarter of SEK 802 million, and this was just in the middle of the range from SEK 700 million to SEK 900 million that we guided on in the middle of December. For the full year, we had an EBITDA of SEK 3.7 billion Swedish crowns, and we had an operating cash flow for the full year of SEK 3.9 billion.
I will get back to some more details on the cash flow, but we'll start with the bridges, comparing first Q4 with Q3. So in Q3, we had a negative profit of approximately SEK 200 million, and now in Q4, then the SEK 800 million. And the change here was, to a very large extent, driven by the wait-and-see approach that Martin talked about before. Where the decrease in prices, which for us impacted SEK 500 million, made our customers wait and hold with the orders as much as they could. So we saw a difference in apparent demand and underlying demand. And therefore, we had the big drop in volumes in Q4 versus Q3, impacted with approximately SEK 330 million. So adding the volumes and prices together, it's an impact of more than SEK 800 million between the quarters.
On the positive side, then we had positive impact from variable COGS, to a large extent that the scrap prices in the U.S. decreased very much, but it's also here where we see some of the synergy impacts coming. Comparing Q4 to Q3, we had a negative impact from fixed cost, but this is actually fully seasonally dependent because in Q3, we dissolved the vacation reserves, and therefore, Q3's season is very low. You will see a different, setup when we compare the full year figures. We had some positive effects between the quarters, some negative others, but really, the main thing explaining the drop with SEK 600 million is the drop in prices and the drop in volumes.
If we then instead look at the year-over-year development, we had in 2014, way over there, a positive operating profit of around SEK 1 billion, and the full year, 2015, roughly minus SEK 100 million. So it's 1.1 EBIT difference between the quarters. And here, you can definitely see the huge significant impact coming from prices, where year-over-year, it's a drop of more than SEK 4 billion. The main part or a large part of this is coming from Americas, but it's also coming from Europe, and then to a much lesser extent, coming from specialty steels, where we have seen prices being clearly more stable than for the other divisions. The volume difference when you compare year-over-year is actually fairly small. It's SEK 300 million in this drop, and it's also here, it's mainly Americas.
Europe volume's fairly flat, and there are some in specialty steels as well. We are compensating the huge drop in prices, partly by variable COGS, where raw material, all three main ones, iron ore, coking coal, and scrap, are down quite a lot year-over-year. But it's also here we see our own action in terms of synergies and also other cost improvements. But despite that, clearly, we are not compensating the variable COGS with the drop in prices. On the other hand, we also see a good improvement in fixed cost.
Year-over-year, we actually have SEK 400 million improvements in fixed cost, and also on this item, we see impact from the synergies. We had drop in effects of SEK 300 million. This is partly because we are buying iron ore and coking coal in U.S. dollar, and the dollar is much stronger in 2015 versus 2014.
It's also coming from the huge devaluation of the Brazilian real, which impacted us in Q3. Those are the main items. The negative other of minus SEK 240 million is to a very large explained by the amortization of surplus values from the acquisition of Ruukki. We did not have them in 2014, and in 2015, they are approximately SEK 50 million per quarter, so SEK 200 million in total. But overall, looking year-over-year, a huge impact on prices, only partly compensated by cost, and a drop in SEK 1.1 billion. Moving down to the cash flow statement. In Q4, we had a positive net cash flow of SEK 1.5 billion, to a large extent, driven by the change in working capital of SEK 2 billion.
The change in working capital is, to a large extent, coming from lower sales, so lower accounts receivable, but it's also coming from lower inventories. All in all, we have had, during the whole year, but even more so during the fourth quarter, a very strong focus on making sure that we reduce working capital as much as possible. If we take the full year, we have a positive net cash flow down here of SEK 2.3 billion, and that is despite having high maintenance CapEx coming from especially the relining in Luleå, and quite high strategic CapEx coming from the PCI investment Martin talked about before in Raahe. In 2015, we have around SEK 2.6 billion in total in CapEx, and then despite that, a positive net cash flow of SEK 2.3 billion.
We will have, I'll come back to that, but we will clearly have lower CapEx in 2016 compared to 2015. Given the positive net cash flow, we did reduce the net debt with SEK 1.5 billion during 2015, and we are now down at SEK 23.2 billion. We also reduced the gearing from 56% to 52%, where we have a long-term target of being at 30%, and we are striving towards continuously reducing our gearing. If we look then at the maturity profile, we can see that it's fairly balanced. We have around SEK 6 billion, 2016 and 2017, and then somewhere between SEK 3 billion and SEK 4 billion for the coming years. We have an average maturity term of 4.6 years.
It was, as you can see, 3.9, when we ended 2014, and we have been working very much on this during the year to increase the average maturity. What we have maturing here is 16. Out of these SEK 6 billion, approximately 60% of this is commercial paper. We also have a continued covenant-free debt portfolio. Looking down a bit longer at the average duration and also at the interest rate cost. In the quarter as such, we saw a slight decrease on the average duration. What is mentioned, as you can see it here on the trend, we have been increasing the duration over the year. The interest rate, nothing really dramatic has happened. We were on slightly below 2.4 at the end of Q3, and now we are at 2.4.
So still a very low interest rate. Moving then into cost development between 2015 and 2016. Martin showed you where we would be 2017 compared to the time of the merger, and here's a bit more shorter sight then. We believe that or rather, we will be at the SEK 1.25 billion lower cost in 2016 versus 2015. To a large extent, this is coming from the increased amount of synergies of SEK 900 million. It's also coming from the PCI, and it's coming from the Ruukki Construction savings. Here we have 150 out of the total 200. For the PCI, we will get the full SEK 200 million impact this year. So all in all, an improvement in cost with SEK 1.25 billion in 2016 versus 2015.
Finally, then, on capital expenditure assumptions for 2016, we have previously guided that we will have a maintenance CapEx of between SEK 1.6 billion and SEK 1.8 billion on average. We were slightly above that in 2015, given the realigning in Luleå. But we do have a potential to reduce maintenance CapEx in a slow market environment. However, of course, for maintenance and RMC CapEx, there are things we need to do from a safety point of view, from a compliance point of view, and just to make sure we keep the machines running. For the strategic CapEx, here we are obviously more free to choose what we want to spend our money on, where we see really good returns.
But this in a very slow market situation, if the market turns worse, we will keep strategic CapEx on a very low level. And all in all, when we add strategic and maintenance together, we will be between SEK 1.5 billion-SEK 2.0 billion for 2016. To be compared then with the outcome in 2015 of SEK 2.6 billion. We are also, last point here is that we are also constantly looking at what other things can we do to improve our working capital. And a lot of the synergy items, although they are aimed at cost reduction, they also imply better working capital utilization. For example, when we close the painting line and galvanizing line in Borlänge, we move all that to Finland.
We only produce these products in one site, and that obviously give us lower inventory level as well.
Thank you. So to sum up then, we are not expecting any, any dramatic changes in underlying demand. We are expecting higher apparent demand in Q1 compared to Q4. There is still, of course, a risk that what we started to talk about, Chinese export and different and changed trade patterns, will impact, continue to impact and will impact the market situation negatively. Demand for high-strength steels, some ups and downs, but fairly stable in Q1 compared to Q4, underlying demand, and in total, we expect higher shipments in Q1 compared to Q4, and that is due to better apparent demand. If you look at the segments, heavy transport, we expect it in Q1 to continue on a stable level in Europe. We expect the US market to continue to slow down.
Automotive for the coming quarter, fairly stable, both in Europe and US. Construction machinery, stable on low levels, and we see that export of construction machinery out of US are under pressure. Mining, stable on, I wouldn't say non-existing levels, but very low levels. We don't expect any changes there. Energy, oil-related segments will continue to be demanding. We expect to see a continued strong demand from wind towers. Construction material, we typically see a seasonality in Q1. Q1 is very often stronger than Q4 due to seasonality. We expect to see that pattern this year as well. Service centers, beats me, but the inventories are very low, and we expect to see replenishment, and we are seeing replenishment. We don't expect any restocking.
We don't expect any further re destocking either, but replenishment from steel service centers in North America. As mentioned, we have formed a new business unit, SSAB Services. SSAB Services will be responsible for wear services and the shape business. In wear services, an important part is the Hardox wear part network, where we, at the end of 2014, had approximately 145 companies included in that network, and at the end of 2015, close to 190 companies. The aim is, of course, to develop that even quicker and further going forward, and that's why we have put this in a separate business unit. And the task for the business unit is drive sales of branded products, create new applications, and develop new business models.
Grégoire Parenty, that the last years has been heading global marketing, will be heading or is heading this new business unit. So to sum up, a strong focus on what we can control ourselves: market positions, lead times, delivery position, cost positions, efficiency measures. Synergies 1.8 will be done mid this year. PCI investment done, savings in Ruukki Construction on its way, other savings, in total, a cost reduction of SEK 2.5 billion. Full P&L effect, 2017, and a reduction of 2,400 people or 13.6% up until the end of this year. So with that, I guess, yes, we open up for questions.
Yes, we would like to open up for questions, and let's start with the audience here in Stockholm. And let's start with Olof, and-
Olof Cederholm, ABG Sundal Collier. In your outlook, you don't say anything at all regarding prices. I assume that is on purpose, or can you shed any light, what's happened so far in 2016?
That's on purpose, yes.
So, so no comments at all regarding that?
No, but we, we have, together with the other plate producers in North America, introduced, price increases, for, for plate in U.S. and, and two price increases, and part of it stick, part of it doesn't stick. But, but, I mean, that is more a signal that, the prices have bottomed out. And but, but apart from that, we, we don't give any guidance for prices. I think it's very hard to do that.
Fair enough. And then regarding your new synergy target for to announce today, you have a SEK 3 million - SEK 300 million, I should say, upside in that bridge. Could you please explain that one?
No, but as I said, synergies, as we see it, is due to the combination of Ruukki and SSAB. Then, of course, we need to do other cost measures as well. That's all other steel companies are doing. So synergies, for me, is to move us on the cost curve structurally, and then we need to continue with other actions, and these are other actions that we typically do.
Finally, regarding what you have to pay to the banks this year, you said that, regarding your debt situation, that 60% was in commercial paper. Is it right to conclude then, that roughly SEK 2 billion needs to be paid to the banks or rolled over?
2.5.
2.5. Thanks.
Oscar Vikström from Danske Bank. I have three questions for you. The first one is regarding the working capital reduction that we saw in the fourth quarter. How much of that is, do you expect to hold on to, in 2016? And how much was due to lower volumes and your ability to draw down inventory, specifically only in the Q4?
A large portion of it was based on lower sales, and given that we are expecting higher volumes in Q1, that will naturally also mean higher accounts receivable. So we will see part of that reversing in Q1, yes. But I said before, we also see other opportunities to continue working with working capital. So when we look at 2016 as a whole year, I mean, we will have a bounce back in Q1, but we have other options that we will continue working on throughout the year.
One example of that, I mean, week eight, now we are closing the galvanizing line in Borlänge and moving production to Hämeenlinna. And that will reduce work in progress, it will reduce finished goods. We are specializing lines now, I mean, focusing Borlänge more on high-strength steel and, and so on, and that gives longer sequence lengths, less working capital, less finished inventories. And that is also part or, or related to the combination of the two companies.
As a whole, for 2016, we should expect lower working capital compared to the situation at the end of 2015.
Yes, work in progress and inventories, yes. And then hopefully, higher accounts receivable.
A second question, if I may. I saw a comment here in the news wire in the morning that you said you would not be looking at a new, you know, need new financing under a base case scenario.
What I said when I was asked was that we expect to continue to have strong cash flows and be able to take care of our balance sheet. That was the only thing I said.
Mm, okay. And then a final question: there's been a number of different sort of investigations and initiatives regarding anti-dumping duties, especially in the U.S., but also quite a lot of talk anyway, in Europe. Could you first of all, update us on how you expect these to impact your business? And two, if you're seeing any changes in market behavior from customers already, due to these,
We see some small signs, I mean, cold roll in Europe, which is a fairly important market for us. We have approximately, what could it be? 350,000 tons, and there has been leaks about that, and we have seen slightly different behavior, because when they do this, it will be retroactive, and the one importing the volumes will be the one paying the dumping duties. There is a lot of discussions ongoing in the U.S. about hot roll and plate, but I don't really know where that will turn out. It's not. We can't control that. We think, I mean, as I've said many times, we are in favor of the combination of free and fair trade. But what I show that the first picture is not necessarily fair and free trade.
So, I think it could be a short-term help or relief or however you put it, for the steel industry, and I think we have seen some of the trade barriers being implemented, and there are discussions of implementing more trade barriers.
Thank you.
Hjalmar Ahlberg, Berenberg. On the standard steel product, we've seen a profitability squeeze in Q4 and probably in Q1 as well. How do you see this developing in special steel? Have you seen an impact there as well?
We have fairly stable prices in special steel for the niche products. What we have experienced in special steel is lower volumes of non-branded Q&T. But for the Hardox volumes, the abrasion-resistant steel, the volumes have actually been slightly better compared to the previous year.
Okay, and just one more on the commercial paper, potential rollover in 2016. Can you say anything? Is this happening Q1, Q2, Q2, Q3, or is it-
Excuse me. It's happening constantly because we have quite many of them outstanding, so we are renewing them basically on a weekly basis.
Okay, thank you.
Morning, gentlemen. It's Julian Beer from SEB. Can I just go back to the issue of synergies to start with? You've got various elements, and I'd like to try and understand where you've come from and where you're going to. I think the original Ruukki synergies figure was EUR 1.4 billion.
It was actually 1.0-1.35.
Right. So that's come from 1.0 to 1.35 to 1.8.
Yes.
Of that, 1.1 is already delivered?
The run rate, yes.
Yeah.
The actions were taken, yes.
Right. Could you just describe what items you found to be able to extend to 1.8?
It's a lot of items. I, I think I've said it before, it's approximately 150 different projects. It's about specializing lines, as I said, get up sequence lengths, get up yield, yield improvements, cost reductions, manning reductions. It's a lot of items. And as I said in the beginning, when you do a plan, you have, of course, high hopes and a, a lot of good ideas. And then when you start to work it, with it, you see that, I mean, some doesn't come through fully, and some others are better than expected. And, and now, one and a half year into the program, we see that, we are meeting, more than meeting the externally communicated targets. And, and we.
As you remember, from the beginning, it was 1.0 to 1.35 within three years, and then we felt that this is actually going faster than we planned, and we had some doubts about how easy it would be, how hard it would be to combine two companies that had been competing for a long time. And maybe we overestimated the problems of doing that. Then, of course, it has been a lot of hard work for the full organization. But right now, 1.5 years into the two-year program, we see that we will be able to deliver 1.8. And it's a lot, it's not one project or two projects, it's a lot of projects.
Yeah.
We have focused a lot on this. I follow it up myself every second week, so we look at it in GSE and so on, so a strong focus on it.
Would you say it's more to do with getting economies from the supply side, from your purchasing side, or is it actually manpower efficiency?
It's a lot of different efficiencies. I mean, when you, what is important in this industry is to have yield and have as long sequence lengths as possible. So when you specialize lines, when you take out production, like we do with the eastern side, with the galvanizing line and the color coating line in Raahe, you get these kind of effects in Borlänge. But I said, it's 154 projects, I think, altogether. Some of them are fully delivered, some are still on their way.
And-
It's a lot of different items.
Okay, so the additional 300 today, are those projects defined, and are they, in essence, any different from the types of 150 projects you've already delivered?
No. So it's a lot of different projects. And to be honest, of course, the internal target has always been higher than 1.0-1.35 or 1.4. You need to allow yourself some headroom, so you can make sure that you at least deliver what you promise. And 1.5 years into that program or process, we see that we will be able to deliver. We can promise to deliver more than we have earlier communicated.
The SEK 300 million refers to defined projects?
Yes, of course. Otherwise, I wouldn't state that we will deliver.
But-
It's nothing we will start to think about tomorrow. It's already on its way.
The SEK 400 million, which the PCI and the Ruukki Construction savings, how much of that was evident in Q4?
I would say very, very little.
Okay.
The PCI was done during Q3, but then we used the oil we had in Q4 to a large extent. So I would say PCI from first of January. Ruukki Construction, well, part of it, yes, but we are in the middle of implementing that.
So we get SEK 50 million quarter-on-quarter in Q1 from PCI?
That would be.
Construction, how much of that was evident in Q4?
I don't know the exact figure, but part of it. But, but you will see, I mean, it will be implemented now in Q1 and Q2.
Thank you for that. And then lastly for me, can we go back to the issue of loans and liquidity? You rely very much for your liquidity on the commercial paper program. I think it's about SEK 10 billion in total, something like that.
No, SEK 3.6 billion.
In total CP?
Yes.
For all years?
Yes.
Okay.
At the end of December, yes.
So, okay. So maybe I've got this question slightly mixed up then. Because my understanding was that you ran standby facilities of around SEK 8 billion to support commercial paper programs.
In total, we have backup facilities in total of SEK 11 billion. That's partly cash, and then it's partly revolving credit facilities. And those we can use for general corporate purposes. But these are undrawn money that we can use if we would need them, but the commercial papers, those we are actually using already today, and they are in the size of SEK 3.6 billion Swedish kronor.
Okay, so the liquidity is the fact that you have this, the standby facility to support the CP program and the undrawn?
Whatever we might need. Right now, we have the SEK 11 billion corresponds to around 19% of our sales, so we have quite large backup facilities right now.
Okay, thank you.
Yeah, but we are using 3.6 at the moment. Yeah.
These are the famous facilities which currently don't have any covenants attached to them, which some have found surprising for any steel sector company. You're renegotiating, or sorry, your maturity on those, I think the first one is Q1 next year?
Q2.
Q2. And then the other two, do they follow later on in 2017?
1, 17 and 18.
Okay. What's your timetable for refinancing those, and do you expect commitment fees to rise in that process?
We are discussing that with the banks, and we are finding what would be the best way to do that, then we'll see what the outcome will be.
What, what sort of commitment fee do you pay at the moment?
I don't have the exact figure in mind.
Do you think that there's going to be a significant impact on the P&L as a result of higher net interest fees as you go through this renegotiation-
No.
-process?
Not significant impact.
Thank you very much.
Okay, operator, do we have any questions over the phone?
Thank you, and as a reminder, if you do wish to ask a question, please press the zero-one on your telephone keypad. And if you wish to withdraw that question, you may do so by pressing the zero-two to cancel. Our first question comes from the line of Michael Byrne from Highbridge. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Hi, I have a question on your guidance. Given that you warned in the fourth quarter, I would have expected you to be a little bit more explicit around Q1. I would assume that margin, given there's an uptick in volume, should recover in Q1. But I would think that volumes will be below last year, and therefore, your absolute results will be below last year. Is that a fair assessment or not?
As you said, we are not guiding. What we are guiding for is higher apparent demand in Q1, and we are also guiding for volumes, and we are guiding for CapEx for 2016, and we are guiding for the synergies and other cost-saving measures, and that's what we are guiding for.
Okay. My second question is around your setup of your balance sheet. Obviously, you do have backstop facilities. I've been looking at high yield companies for some 20 years, and I've never come across one that uses CP as a central, as a central source of funding. Do you going back to the last gentleman's question, do you envisage changing this, going forward?
You mean using CPs? Well-
Yes.
We are, I mean, we are going up and down with CPs, depending on cash flow as well. We were up as high as SEK 4.5, then we had a strong cash flow in Q4, so we went down to SEK 3.6, and that will vary over time. So far, we have seen both the Finnish and the Swedish CP market being accommodative, accommodative.
Well, where does this relationship come from? Because, you know, you're BB rated, you're on negative outlook, and yet you're issuing CP.
Sorry, what was the question?
I just wondered, is this historic, that you've always used CP or not? Because your rating, as I say, doesn't really warrant having a commercial paper program.
We have been running this program for many years.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Murphy from Millennium. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Just to follow up on a couple of other inquiries regarding the commercial paper. I think it's entirely unusual for a junk-rated company to have such a large commercial paper program. And we've seen in the past with, I think, the one other example we can think of, with such a rated credit, with a significant program, that under certain stress circumstances, access to commercial paper can be withdrawn quite quickly. You explained earlier that your short-term plan would be to use the backup lines, as was well explained. But what's your long-term plan B if you were to lose access to commercial paper markets, perhaps by virtue of a further credit downgrade?
As I said, you know, so far, we have seen the CP markets working well for us. And, you know, as with all other financing, we will, going forward, look into how much we will use on the CP market and how much we will use on the bank market or on the capital market.
So there isn't a plan B if it does kind of fall away in the very short term?
Well, if it would fall away in the very short term, which we have not seen-
Use the lines, yeah. But beyond that, to kind of reconstruct that line of financing, do you have a plan for that?
Of course, we plan for every possible or thinkable scenario. But right now, this is plan A.
So would that be for the bank financing of some kind? Would that be fair to say?
No, but we, as said, I mean, now we have. We, we stick to plan A, and if, then if something else changes, we obviously need to do something else.
So, I mean, it's just a concern that if, you know, you were to get downgraded as a result of some of the pretty challenging end market conditions, then we have seen in the past how access to Commercial Paper can kind of disappear quite quickly. We understand you've got the backup lines, which kind of bridges you for the short term. But, just to be clear, there isn't a kind of long-term plan B on that front?
There is always a plan for different scenarios that we are constantly evaluating, yes.
So, just to be clear, what is that plan?
Well, that is our internal plan.
Okay, thanks. And just one more question, if I may, before I leave you in peace. Does it concern you that the market price of your bonds is kind of EUR 0.86, and they yield around 9%, compared to your, you know, your current blended cost of debt? That if that were marked to even current market conditions, does that concern you or not really?
I think one should remember, you're referring to the euro bonds, which are traded at very low liquidity, and if you look at the Swedish bonds, there's quite a big price gap in those two.
I think there's quite a big size difference as well, isn't there? The euro bonds are much bigger than the local currency bonds.
They're bigger, not all that much, yes.
Thank you very much, and, good luck for the challenging environment ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Robert Redin from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah, hi, could I start on your outlook for the end segments in the U.S.? You're saying heavy transport is sort of expected to slow down. Construction machinery under pressure, whereas wind expected to be, you know, stay at a good level. Net-net, what would you say when you're talking to your customers in the U.S., your end market segments? Is there sort of a negative, stable or upwards pointing arrow in the U.S.?
I would say stable to slightly down maybe, but we saw that already in Q3 and Q4, so I wouldn't say a massive difference.
Okay. My second question would be on Europe. So, I mean, you have the contract structure there, so I think you will have some visibility on pricing in Q1, and there was falling prices through Q4. So, would you say that sort of the price and raw material component in gross margin, would that be sort of a negative, neutral or positive Q on Q and Q1, you think?
I think what one should remember is contract prices, yes, are lower in Q1 than in Q4. On the other hand, Q4 was impacted quite a lot by spot volumes since we discussed the apparent and underlying demand before. So in Q1, you can say we will have more normal orders, which are usually at a better price level, but the average price level on the contract size, contract-wise is down.
Oh, okay. So, there's a mixed component there-
Yes.
that we have to take into account?
Yeah.
Hmm. Okay, so my final question would be, so you sold the, piece of real estate in Q4. How much of a cash flow was that?
125.
Okay, thanks. Those are my questions.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sebastian Synagowitz from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes, good morning, gentlemen. I've got three questions. Firstly, could you please identify any items with one-off character, be it maintenance costs, an absorption of fixed costs, or even any other costs related to possible inventory impairments, if there have been any in your operating income in the figures in the Q4 results? Then secondly, looking at the results and what fundamentals do you have any plans to incrementally idle capacity, be temporary or permanently? And I've got one more question, but maybe I'll stop here before asking my last one.
Thank you, Bastian. That was nice. I think your first question was regarding if we had in the result any significant one-off items.
Uh, correct.
Yeah. And the major ones we have broken out and specified them in what we call item affecting comparability. For example, costs related to the synergies and also this real estate sale that was referred to in the last question. Then in the call it a clean result, there is obviously things that are unusual during a specific quarter. You can, w e talked about the outage in Oxelösund during the quarter. Given that prices went down, yes, we had some inventory where you have to value it to lower cost to market. So some of that, but the main ones we have broken out and specified in items affecting comparability.
Yes, and particularly after the ones you're not breaking out in the statement so far.
Sorry?
I'm particularly after the items, which you obviously didn't break out, the other ones, which you didn't kind of break out, in the statement.
and I would say, in the ones that we didn't break out, I think the major one that's really impacting is the maintenance outage in Oxelösund, where we have a bit more than SEK 100 million in direct extra cost, but then also the unabsorption effect, from not running production for a few weeks.
So the inventory effect you mentioned earlier hasn't been large at all?
It's been there, but I would say it's not. It's not huge, no.
G ot it. Okay, perfect.
It's too big to ignore, but overall-
Yep.
Not that big. Then the second question, idling capacity. We have one blast furnace in Oxelösund idled. We will permanently close the galvanizing line during Q1 in week eight, I think it is, and move that production to Hämeenlinna. We have permanently closed the color coating line in Borlänge, and we have now, after the relining of the blast furnace, also possibility to idle further blast furnace capacity if the market would require so.
You're not planning or kind of looking into any plans to actually do this short term?
No, but as I said, short term, we will close permanently the galvanizing line in Borlänge. There are some cut to length slides and so on, that we have idled or will idle, but not any big changes apart from that, no. And we are not planning either to open the small blast furnace in Oxelösund that is idled.
Okay. Okay, understood. Then my last question is on your net debt, which is obviously very high relative to the earnings level, which you're currently generating. How far are you concerned about your balance sheet? Because while your cash flow was obviously very positive in the fourth quarter, this was mostly driven by working capital, and the scope for reductions in working capital here, I guess, will start to become limited at some point. And on underlying level, you're still actually burning cash at every day between, say, SEK 100 million or even SEK 700 million. I'm not quite sure the market fundamentals will allow us to improve that much near term, so would you rule out any strategic or even equity-related steps to repay your balance sheet?
Because on an organic way, basis, it will be extremely difficult to, basically overcome your balance sheet, situation, unless the market improves significantly. Thank you.
As we have said before, we have some assets in the group that are not, call it, extremely important strategically. In one of them, we are running a restructuring program now. That could be a possibility going forward. We are foreseeing lower investments or CapEx levels for 2016, and so when we can steer that, and you also need to remember that, I mean, we, when you look at the EBIT, we have a fairly big amortization so of surplus values. So we should be, and we have still possibilities due to the combination then. One example is closing the galvanizing lines. That will reduce the inventories, that will reduce work in progress. So we are not done in that aspect.
Okay. Okay, but you're not looking into any options to possibly, basically boost or increase your equity?
We are looking into possibilities that we can fully control ourselves. As said, I mean, going forward, parts of what we have today are not extremely important strategically.
Okay, understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of James Gurry from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thanks very much. Yeah, most of my questions have been answered, but I just wanted to ask, you've announced a lot more redundancy costs, or, or redundancies today. Where are the one-off costs associated with that 465 new headcount? And just also in relation to idling capacity, the market is quite bad at the moment, and, you know, when you did the merger, you did set out quite clearly, which blast furnaces would be operating at different points in the cycle. Are you following that sort of map that you outlined then? And yeah.
Yes, we are, is the simple answer.
Okay.
For the first question, we have said that there will be no additional cost for this further reduction plan for the reduction.
So there's no redundancy cost?
No. And as you, as Martin presented before, we have also been able to deliver the synergies with significantly lower cost than we originally anticipated.
Okay. So the synergy is 1.8, but there's no ex. That's like a net number.
We have had extra costs related to synergies, well, well below SEK 200 million that we guided for, and those costs are already taken.
Okay, so they're already booked?
Yeah.
Looking forward for synergies and the extra efficiency actions, we don't anticipate additional cost, or at least not significant. We are at maximum limited additional cost.
Okay, that's all my questions.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Carsten Riek from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thank you very much. Also very few questions left from my side. The first one is on SSAB services. You mentioned you want to create an, or you will create a new business unit for it. Can you give us any guidance, how much of the earnings contribution will go out of the existing ones? And who is the biggest contributor, actually, to this business? That's the first one.
SSAB Services will be run as a separate business unit, but it will be consolidated mainly into SSAB Special Steels. We are not changing the reporting.
Okay.
But we will follow it closely with a stronger focus.
Oh, okay.
We have also introduced a couple of other business units then to increase focus. One is automotive, another one is tubes, and then we have the southern and the northern business unit in North America. So this is a way of increasing focus, being able to internally measure things and put clear mandates and responsibilities into it.
... Okay, thank you. The second question I have is on specialties or special steels. You mentioned that you had one-off costs of about SEK 100 million directly from the maintenance outage. But you also mentioned you took market share in wear steels in this business. Where was it in particular? Was it U.S.? And, because I also noticed that the revenues per ton, quarter-on-quarter, came down quite significantly. Does it have anything to do with taking the market share here? Or, because you want to prepare for future earnings uptake, or is it just pure by accident?
No, we start with the market share. We increased market share for abrasion-resistant steel. Hardox, our most, I would call it, specialized product, both in North America and slightly also in Europe.
For the revenue per ton part, if you take Special Steels' total revenue, in Q3, they were running both of the blast furnaces since we had the relining in Luleå.
Mm-hmm.
Shipping slabs to Borlänge, which they got paid for at cost.
Mm-hmm.
That increased the revenue. If you then divide with the shipments, the slabs are not part of the shipments, so then that you get a too high number in Q3, basically.
Oh, okay. Got it. Thank you very much. That's all I wanted to ask.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Johannes Grunselius from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes, hello, everyone. Johannes here. Just to follow up on prices here. You mentioned in the start here, Martin, that Q4 was very much characterized by price pressure. I'm after, did we see the whole negative effect of this coming in the fourth quarter, or is there still some negative spillover effect of that into Q1? It would be interesting to have your thoughts there, please.
What we were talking about was price pressure on the spot market, and obviously, when prices go down and we have quarterly contract, you will see lower prices in the quarterly contracts next quarter.
So, what you're telling us is that we should see lower realized prices because of the lagging effect here?
Yes. For comparable products, yes.
Yeah.
And then there is a mix effect, and then there is other effects, but, but yes.
Yes. I can assume that, the mix-
Of course, we have some spot volumes, and we have half year contracts, so it's a mix, but on the quarterly contracts, you will see that, yes.
Right. And on the mix side, I assume it's a good mix because you're selling less to distributors, perhaps, and demand that at your sort of core clients are holding up better. Am I right there?
In that aspect, yes.
Yeah. Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Robbins from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, thank you. Like some of the other questions today, I'm also a bit concerned about, you know, net leverage of nearly seven times. You didn't generate any free cash flow excluding working capital, and that you're on review for downgrade S&P. I didn't quite get your comment before. I didn't quite catch you. Are you explicitly ruling out any tapping of the equity market to deleverage?
We didn't answer that question. We said that we expect to have-
Okay.
continue to have a strong cash flow, and then look into all the different plans. So yes, you misunderstood that.
Okay. And just secondly, I mean, can you please provide a full breakdown, whether on your website or in future earnings releases of the various components of debt, like most high yield companies do? Because it's quite. Obviously, there's been a lot of questions about it today on CP and backup facilities and when all the maturities are, and it would be very useful to have that information as your credit rating declines.
We have some more information on the website than we have published today, so I think if you start there.
It isn't very comprehensive, though. Maybe you should look at some. Maybe if you could look at some of your peers, perhaps that would be useful.
We can look. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we can look into that.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Luke Paz from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, gentlemen. Two remaining questions, if I may. So I do appreciate that you won't commit on any, profitability guidance for Q1, but could you be, maybe a bit more specific, as to what you, mean by increased volumes? Are we talking mid-single digit, increase? Double-digit increase? That would be my first question. And the second one is related to, goodwill and the massive amount of goodwill you still have, which I suspect is greatly attributable to IPSCO. And I'm quite surprised to see you not, passing write-downs, given the fact that the acquisition was made in 2007, at a time when, markets were obviously much stronger. So don't you feel the need, or your, let's say, accountants, feel the need for you to book write-downs there? Thank you.
Sure.
On the goodwill, we have made an impairment test in accordance with IFRS. I want you to remember, it's not a short-term test, you look at the long-term profitability of that business, and according to that test, there is no need for impairment, no.
Go first.
The first question was on volumes, what we were expecting for Q1.
We are not specifically guiding. We say that we expect higher volumes due to higher apparent demand. We are not giving any specific guidance on percentage points or increases.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jason Layte from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one was just a comment. I mean, just on the impairment test that you take, the market cap of the stock is about 80% lower than the shareholders' equity on the balance sheet. So it's such a huge discrepancy there. I guess that's where some of the surprise comes from in terms of the impairment test. But first question I have is just you talked about contract prices to be lower. What percentage of the revenue approximately is under contract versus spot prices?
Overall, what is it? 50% or something like that.
Yeah, overall, for the steel divisions, it's approximately 50%.
Okay, so about half. Okay.
It varies a little bit between the divisions as well, between Americas, Europe, and Special Steels.
Okay. Is there one of the divisions higher or lower? Or, I mean, are they within a range of, you know, 40%-60%, or is one of them quite a bit different from the 50%?
I think if you say between 40-60, you basically cover it. Yes.
Okay. Okay. And can you give any rough idea? I mean, some other competitors have talked about the amount of decline in the contract price. But for those that you have had negotiations on, can you give any rough quantum of the decline?
Depends a lot on markets and products. But I mean, we have contract prices of 50% of the volumes, and we have some spot volumes, and we have half-year prices. So for standard steel, we are following the usual steel market in those regions where we are active.
Okay, following the market. Okay, fine. The next question I have is, just a little bit more on, on what's going on, I guess, with competitors. We hear a lot, obviously, we talked about imports, coming in from other parts of the world. But, you know, names like Nucor and Tata and Arcelor have talked about moving into higher priced steel because they're getting pressured on some of the more commodity products, and then some other Asian, steel producers moving into higher quality or HSS. So I, I wonder, with that going on, how do you look at your market shares? Maybe not in this quarter, but even as we look through 2016, given the trend that these other larger companies have, have talked about and in order to try to offset the pressure they see.
Well, they have always been into advanced high-strength steels, and we are in small fragments of that market. We are within automotive, as an example, only producing extremely advanced high-strength steels for safety details. We are not covering the full market. When it comes to Q&T, we are not standing still. We are developing new products all the time and moving as well within that segment. So if it would stand still for a number of years, we would of course be caught, but we continue to develop as well.
And you-
You need to remember that the Q&T market globally is still very small. So, and we have a very strong position, and we'll continue to have a very strong position in that. But, we constantly develop new products, new grades, and take them to the market.
Okay. Okay, so you think you'll be able to just evolve ahead of the other names that are looking to produce more of this?
That's the plan, yes.
Okay. And then the last question I've got is just on not necessarily capacity utilization, but I guess capital utilization. Someone else talked about the EBIT levels, and so return on invested capital, how do you talk to equity investors who I presume would be focusing on this, EBIT level looks to be below 0 for the last couple of years. And so when you've got the leverage at this high level, which I know you're working on, but the enterprise valuations of other steel companies is around 5, so lower than the leverage. How do you give the equity holders a reason to support the business?
I'm not really sure if we understood your question.
Yeah, just the point is, if I think about it, looking forward, if there is a need or an interest to raise equity, with leverage levels pushing towards 6.5 or 7, and the enterprise values of other businesses in steel around 5 or in that range, how do you speak to the equity investors to look to support the stock, should you need it?
Well, what we are focusing on is what we can control ourselves, strong cash flows and efficiency measures. That is what we are focusing on.
Okay. Thank you for the time.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Seda Ekblom from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thanks very much. Guys, sorry, I need to go back to the point on your commercial paper program and also your backup credit lines that you have in place. Can you give us some more color on exactly what the size of those credit lines are, the maturities, explicit maturities? And I know the question's been asked, so maybe you could follow up at some point, but the increase in cost if you move all your commercial paper to, you know, be backed up by those undrawn credit lines, because, you know, this is a key point on SSAB, and it seems that we're just not getting the detail that we need on this. So I don't know if you've got it to hand or if you can send it to us at some point today.
I wouldn't have it at hand, so we'd have to discuss that at a later stage. If you take the second part of the question, yes.
What was the first part was regarding what on the CP? Oh, you asked about the maturity on the backup facilities.
Exactly. So I'd like to understand, if the commercial paper market is not available to you because you're junk-rated, and in general, you would think that A-rated credits or companies should have better access to the commercial paper market, and the macroeconomic outlook is challenging, and things could change, where are we sitting in terms of those backup lines? Because that's a key risk question here on SSAB, and we don't seem to get the answers to that. So I just wanted to know exact dates on those tranches, what the explicit sizes are, and what the cost of drawing those tranches would be.
Let us come back to see what the part of that information we can provide, Celia.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. As there appear to be no further questions, I return the conference to you.
Okay. Do we have any final questions here in the audience in Stockholm? One for Julian Beer.
Just a broader industry question. You've done what is widely regarded as absolutely the right thing by engaging in the Ruukki merger to improve your efficiency and productivity, deal with capacity. The industry remains heavily in overcapacity in Europe. ThyssenKrupp last week suggested that their view with the way forward is for joint ventures to deal with areas of overcapacity in the steel industry in Europe. Do you believe that that is the right way to go forward? And can you, given your location, see any potential partners, without naming names, whereby you could go forward for further efficiencies in that direction, too?
Could be for parts of the business. I understand what ThyssenKrupp means, and I mean, I said we are fairly local in the Nordic region and in North America, and we are a very small steel company, number 47 or something, globally. I think we will see, I hope we will see further consolidation. I think we will see joint ventures. Something is hopefully happening with Riva. I guess something will happen with Thyssen. I don't know. But I think there would be room for further consolidations and maybe joint ventures also, not only in Europe, but explicitly in China as well. And that was also what was talked about once again when this release came out the fourth of February. So I think there is room for that. Yes.
Could you see any arrangement whereby a Nordic steel producer could engage in that?
I don't answer that question. There could be possibilities, I don't know, but I think what needs to happen is, I mean, something needs to happen with Riva, and something will happen with Riva, and it will happen with the big big producers, hopefully.
Thanks.
Okay. If there are no further questions, we'll conclude, the Q&A session. Thank you for participating today, and if you have any further questions, please contact us in the IR team. Thank you.
Thank you.